H6 FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2016 THE TIMES-PICAYUNE NOLA.COM Creole Creole of evolution The nature traits and construction methods. methods. nature and construction traits architecture, Creole an inventory andtheyexhibited mized ofsig in colonialbuildings New until the 1790s, epito at least Orleans, Most evolutionthrough its andtransformation. Onethingiscertain: order,than an inscribed Creole architecture understood is better rather andadaptation traditionrendered bygent experimentation oneunequivocal answer. defies Creole ahouse makes As anemer Richard Campanella New Orleansarchitectural forms influenced andtheCaribbean Africa Building traditions from Europe, answers. all of the above, andyou’ll 30different likely get 10 New Ask to to Orleanians define cooking. toes anythingtity or an adjective describing from toma culture, whetherasanounimplying anethniciden So, too, what with Creole architecture: Explaining “Creole” is a famously complex facet of A GEOGRAPHERS’ VIEWOFTHENEWORLEANSAREA [email protected] - - - - -

Brantley Robert S. Photos by House’s attic. the Lombard fill trusses Norman Left: the 1700s. were typicalin that ing traits Creole build- includes The house erick Starr. by S. Fred- was restored backyard) here from the Bywater (seen House in Lombard Above: The THE TIMES-PICAYUNE NOLA.COM FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2016 H7

- - - One theory views Louisiana Creole architecture as a derivative of theoryOne derivative a Louisiana as views architecture Creole explanation sees Creole architecture as an and favored A third Edwards D. anthropologist Jay Louisiana University State Circumstances changed and so Creole 1700s, in the late would Spanish administrators responded with new building codes The Ossorno House, at 913 Gov. Nicholls St., is an example of 18th-century St., is an example Nicholls Creole The Ossorno Gov. at 913 House, Quarter its location French to in 1784. St. John Bayou from moved was It architecture. / staff archive Chris Granger French Canadian housesFrench modified and later to local conditions and needs. This proposition suggests diffused architecture Creole from Louisi to the Mississippi and then down to Valley France ana. Another theory emphasizes France influences directly from Louisiana.to itself milieu, cultural Indian product a of extraction West a from European,indigenous influences,African and Arawak the as such hut. This Yoruba Africa’s Indian Bohio hut and possibly West hypothesis suggests that Creole architecture diffused up primarily It thus and beyond. the Caribbeanfrom the Mississippi to Valley and the Atlantic” Orleans at the nexus of the “Creole situates New interior. American North hearth“another major cultural for as influence Indian West viewed along with the domestic architecture of eastern America,” North Scandina Holland, Africa, West Germany, , France, England, other and places.via Orleans’ New of destroyed 856 1788 in fire massive A architecture. Creole housing stock, and a second another blaze destroyed in 1794 212. fires,designed mandating, prevent to to records, Cabildo according while new houses be to “builtroof of bricks and a flat roof,” or tile extant houses be to strengthened stand “to a roof of fire-proof mate citizens “[All] must comply stucco. with beams their covered rials,” decreed. dons the thesewith rules,” ------Staircases were located outside on the gallery, chimneys were cen chimneys were locatedStaircases outside on the gallery, were Quarter by French distributed across today’s buildingsSuch were appearancethe with a of environment, bucolic rather a was It The best surviving examples phase of this early archi of Creole A dozen so or elsewhere city, the in buildings similar survive Researchers originate? architecture did Creole Where generally They included walls made of brick or mud mixed with moss or mud mixed with moss made of brick They included walls (bousillage) set within a load-bearing with timber frame covered hipped usually and dou roof, clapboards; an oversized “Norman” Staff built in 1788. was archive Madame John’s Legacy, now part of the Louisiana now Museum, State Legacy, Madame John’s the hundreds in the mid-1700s and grew to more than a thousand more to and grew in the mid-1700s the hundreds set the street, back from and half were Roughly in the century. later all had opennearly them, used space around gardens, for vegetable chicken coops picket fences. and rabbit hutches by and surrounded Capt.English Pittman Philip Wrote village. Indian West French frames filled up houses the of “most visit, are...timber 1765 his during raised about eight feetground, the floor, from and “one with brick,” sub any impossible is It ... large them. with galleries round have to Houseincluding the Old Spanish Custom House (1784) and Pitot and the Lombard St. John House (1826) in Bywater. (1805) on Bayou 1111 at Convent (The Ursuline Old Chartres 1753 in completed St., oldest the city’s and now Colonial represents structure, a French It of Louisinstitutional during the reign style typical of France XV. embodies Creole traits, including the steep double-pitched many hipped roof.) locally in response not “invented” agree this tradition was envi to ble-pitched; and spacious wooden galleries supported with delicate colonnadesbalustrades,and servedwhich intermediaryas space between indoors outdoors. and tralized, and all apertures had French or shutters, hallways was raised edificeclosets and the entire on all but unknown, were soggypiers above soils. be water.” of full constantly would they as buildings, terraneous Legacy at 632 Quartertecture Madame in the French are John’s Nicholls St., both Dumaine St. and the Ossorno House at 913 Gov. Black Lafitte’s Bourbon On 1780s. the to date Philip, St. which at of whose constructionsmith Shop, perhaps 1770s, the dates to also has chimneys, but lacks a gallery roofthe Creole and center and raised not and because commercial construction for built probably was it purposes.residential soils), rain, wet as is often heavy conditions (hotronmental weather, brought courtesy who newcomers of arrived it supposed. Rather, with them all their cultural baggage, including building know-how, routes what by local to modifiedBut and conditions. customs their source regions? which from and H8 FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2016 THE TIMES-PICAYUNE NOLA.COM townhouses at of Royal Street Spanish-influ- The 600 block The 600block enced ‘secondenced common-wall 612-624 Royal612-624 - Ducros-Duca tel House and (left), andthe its additions, its at right,were St. were built includes fine includes Creole archi- constructed constructed tecture. The in the1830s generation’ of themore three-story three-story Campanella urbanized, urbanized, from 1805- examples Photoby Richard 1825. Creole back then. them folksregularly called conditions andbecause to local adapted We1830s. theywere today callthemCreole because fortwo reasons: intheFrenchstanding Quarter, datingfrom the1810s to the mostly “citysecond-generation Creole” architecture. that’s the differencebetween first-generation Creole” “country and France and Spain.” iron and many to balconies, towns peculiar circumstances other in cornices, withtasteful ornamented thehighhouses, row streets, New“(w)hat (about were Orleans) usmost theoldandnar struck city.like a Mediterranean Wrote Hall in 1828, visitor Basil Scottish façade. stucco Spartan to courtyard, arear leading anelegantly cochère allbehind a porte today,Street wrought-iron openings, arched and featuring balconies onRoyal we see andstorehouses brick common-wall townhouses we have cottages Creole today. the it meant For residences, larger formation ofthemore ruralcirca-1700s to thebrick Creole abodes the trans For thismeant architecture emerged. smallerresidences, programmed toof a budding metropolis. theences, needs influ- now exhibitingSpanishandAnglo-American structures lized” “creo to continued erect predominated, andCreole builders — still from the inner city.peared and rabbit and disap picket hutches fences ing density increased, values by hous quintupled the1820s.Land rose, city’s population andAmericandominion,after whichthe Purchase the Louisiana even inruralareas. They would more become unsuitablewith persist inNew proper, Orleans Creole houses wooden thoughtheywould The fires and codes largely ended that first phase of rustic, phase largely that first ended andThe codes fires There are, by my count,740 still ofthislatter phase examples Hall’sContrast to quote thatofPhilipPittmanin1765, above, and towas village look now starting What once felt likea ofCreole andmore urbanphase 1800s, asecond Thus, intheearly Francophones mostly people, — that is,But born locally Creoles - - - - - on Twitter. may bereached through richcampanella.com or @nolacampanella ville’s Dilemma,” “Geographies ofNew Orleans” andother books. He Architecture, is the author of “Bourbon Street: A History,” “Bien tradition. beautiful within ourstewardship thenation’s concentrationofthis largest for keeping are toOrleanians deeply indebted preservationists value did. New its and leaders residents ognized long most before movement, whichrec ofthepreservationist through theefforts communities. inNew Urbanist seen andgalleries sions, andtheampleporches subdivi as theNorman inmany Louisiana popular roofs modern away. Yet endure traits today certain intheformofpastiche, such by whichtime we canfairly say hadfaded architecture thatCreole and the relationship coincidental. is not Haiti, throughoutthe Ti-kay modern dwellings seen houses”) (“little hallways. today to houses shotgun retain resemblance a Our striking shared by circa-1700s Creole architecture: center chimneysandno anddemanded space allowed. camelbacks,whatever doubles, the market —singles, thousands by the houses shotgun erected builders rose, for rental stock “shotgunnicknamed houses.” to West traceable island, themselves Africa.Later, they would be of that brought withthemthe designs vernacularelongated house than 9,000 who arrived Haitian refugees at New in 1809, Orleans and from themore aboost ofalongandnarrow likelyThe idea got house and bays, to typically it. perpendicular parallel to the became street, in a rotated fashion,ditional such that Creole their roofline cottages our famous house. shotgun intoole yet designs evolutionary phase, another which brought forth them out,thecity’s Americanizationdrove mid-19th-century Cre tecturally; for and it.” the whole nation is the poorer archi completed, at least City has long been ization of the Crescent American Fitch. James “The Marston andpreservationist architect andbrought to anendby theCivilana] Purchase War,” wrote thelate New was architecture Orleans brought into by jeopardy the[Louisi of period truly significant ofdecline. “The onatrajectory customs they weren’t Creole buildings. designing up shop in Dakin, New all set and Charles and in the Orleans 1830s, land by way ofNew York, andtheNew York-born James brothers such asJames GallierSr.tects Howard, from Ire andHenry both archi wrights” of old.“Card-carrying” lay and“house tradesmen replacing the techniques, withstandardized profession cialized Revival, the topic of next month’s column. Cityscapes tecturally, Greek andparticularly ofClassicism therise thismeant their own cultural preferences. Archi who imported immigrants, withever-growing andpeting ofAnglo-Americans populations Royal mayCreole St. along townhouses 612-624 seen be to the street, became perpendicular to it. perpendicular became to thestreet, bays, and their roofline typically parallel fashion,suchthat inarotated cottages traditional Creole erected builders local mayShotgun houses have developed as Richard Campanella, ageographer with the TulaneSchool of so,More New in modern Creole architecture survives Orleans wentTraditional shotguns intheearly 20thcentury, outofstyle built in thelatetwo 1800scontinued keyinterior traitsThose After the Civil War, and demand density increased as population may houses Shotgun have tra erected builders as local developed An alternative interpretation holdsthat,ratherthanwiping theoldCreole trend To thenewClassical set researchers, some into aspe developed theerawhenarchitecture This was also in this era increasingBut Creole found people themselves com second-generation ofthese splendidspecimens Among themost ------