Piazza d'Italia (New Orleans)

Last updated
Piazza d'Italia
Piazza d'Italia (New Orleans)
Location New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Coordinates 29°57′30″N90°03′51″W / 29.9584115°N 90.0641665°W / 29.9584115; -90.0641665
Established1978
Designer Charles Moore and Perez Architects
Piazza d'Italia by Charles Moore (with Perez Architects), New Orleans. PiazzaDItalia1990.jpg
Piazza d'Italia by Charles Moore (with Perez Architects), New Orleans.

The Piazza d'Italia is an urban public plaza located behind the American Italian Cultural Center at Lafayette and Commerce Streets in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. It is controlled by the New Orleans Building Corporation (NOBC), a public benefit corporation wholly owned by the City of New Orleans. Completed in 1978 according to a design by noted postmodern architect Charles Moore and Perez Architects of New Orleans, the Piazza d'Italia debuted to widespread acclaim on the part of artists and architects. Deemed an architectural masterpiece even prior to its completion, the Piazza in fact began to rapidly deteriorate as the development surrounding it was never realized. By the turn of the new millennium, the Piazza d'Italia was largely unfrequented by and unknown to New Orleanians, and was sometimes referred to as the first "postmodern ruin". The conversion of the adjacent Lykes Center to the Loews Hotel, New Orleans, completed in 2003, was accompanied by the full restoration of the Piazza d'Italia (accomplished by 2004).

Contents

Early history and design

Though New Orleans received tens of thousands of Italian immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that ethnic group's role in the city's cultural mix went largely unacknowledged, typically overshadowed by the seminal contributions of French and Spanish culture. In the early 1970s, leaders of New Orleans' Italian-American community conceived of a permanent public commemoration of the Italian immigrant experience in the city. New Orleans' downtown, despite receiving some prominent new investment (e.g., One Shell Square, the Superdome) was by this time suffering from many of the same ills infecting most American downtowns in the post-World War II era of suburbanization, white flight and urban disinvestment. New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu was committed to the improvement and revitalization of the city's struggling downtown and greeted with approval suggestions that the project be sited to encourage investment in the city center.

In 1974, Charles Moore, a prominent contemporary architect, former dean of the Yale School of Architecture and a proponent of a witty, exuberant design language later termed postmodern architecture was approached to help realize the vision of New Orleans' Italian-American community. In collaboration with Ron Filson of UIG in Los Angeles and two young architects then practicing with the Perez firm in New Orleans, Malcolm Heard and Allen Eskew, Moore conceived of a public fountain in the shape of the Italian peninsula, surrounded by multiple hemicyclical colonnades, a clock tower, and a campanile and Roman temple - the latter two expressed in abstract, minimalist, space frame fashion. The central fountain, located in the middle of a city block, was accessed in two directions: via a tapering passage extending from Poydras Street, or through an arched opening in the clock tower sited where Commerce Street terminates at Lafayette Street. The fountain and its surrounding colonnades playfully appropriated classical forms and orders, executing them in modern materials (e.g., stainless steel, neon) or kinetically (e.g., suggesting the acanthus leaves of traditional Corinthian capitals through the use of water jets).

The location ultimately chosen for the Piazza d'Italia was a city block sited in the semi-derelict upriver edge of downtown, four blocks from Canal Street and the edge of the French Quarter and three blocks from the Mississippi River. By the mid-1970s, this area had already endured several decades of disfavor and was littered with abandoned or barely-utilized mid-19th century commercial row houses, early-20th century industrial architecture and obsolete port infrastructure. Taking a cue from Boston, Baltimore and other aging port cities who had, starting in the late 1960s, moved to redevelop their historic waterfronts, by the 1970s New Orleans sought to spur investment in what later became known as the Warehouse District. The Piazza d'Italia, it was hoped, would trigger a wave of investment in the Warehouse District and along New Orleans' downtown riverfront, and more generally ignite interest in downtown.

Essential to the Piazza's design was the full realization of its intended surroundings, which were to have included a rehabilitated historic row of 19th-century buildings facing Tchoupitoulas Street (buildings whose rear abutted the edge of the Piazza). The Perez team designed infill buildings to complement this anticipated historic restoration. The mixture of restored architecture and new construction was to have fully brought into being the context envisioned for the Piazza, such that it would function as a "surprise plaza" in the mode of the urban Mediterranean, wherein the pedestrian is proceeding unawares along a narrow passage or alley, only to suddenly emerge into a sunlit plaza ringed by cafes and shops. This intended effect was responsible for the placement of the Piazza d'Italia at the heart of a city block, set back from the surrounding streets.

Inscription

The Piazza's fountain is inscribed in Latin, split into two sections.

On the left, FONS SANCTI JOSEPHI and on the right, HVNC FONTEM CIVES NOVI AVRELIANI TOTO POPULO DONO DEDERUNT.

This translates as: The Fountain of Saint Joseph: The citizens of New Orleans have given this fountain to all the people as a gift.

Decline

The Piazza d'Italia struggled as an urban space almost from the moment of its completion in 1978. Neither public nor private funding was secured to pay for the further redevelopment of the block - the Lykes Center having preceded the Piazza's construction by several years - leaving the Piazza mostly invisible from the street and wedged between blight and the blank modernist facade of Lykes Steamship's headquarters. Without commercial tenants to subsidize maintenance, and with dwindling city budgets increasingly constrained - first by the incremental phase out of federal government revenue sharing, then due to the regional Oil Bust of the mid- to late-1980s - the plaza rapidly deteriorated, with the fountain rarely in operation and the fanciful neon and incandescent lighting accents going unreplaced and unrepaired. In 1987, the vacant historic row along Tchoupitoulas Street was heavily damaged by a fire and was demolished, resulting in the installation of a large surface parking lot adjacent to the Piazza. By 2000, the Piazza d'Italia was routinely cited as a "postmodern ruin", ironically echoing its far older classical antecedents.

Piazza d'Italia at night, May, 2010 Piazza d italia.jpg
Piazza d'Italia at night, May, 2010

Restoration

In 2002 plans were announced to convert the by-then vacant Lykes Center adjacent to the Piazza into a Loews Hotel. The hotel's developers pledged $1 million to restore the Piazza to working order, and Perez Architects was hired to ensure a faithful restoration. [1] In 2004, the fountain was restored to operation, though the badly deteriorated campanile on the site's extreme periphery was removed.[ citation needed ] The Piazza design's original vision of an urban "surprise plaza" remains only partially fulfilled, however, and must await the development of the adjacent surface parking lots for its realization.

Recent developments

For years the Piazza and its surrounding surface parking lots were owned by the Piazza d'Italia Development Corporation. In 2013, this entity was merged with the Canal Street Development Corporation (CSDC), which was itself merged into the New Orleans Building Corporation (NOBC) in December 2016.

In 2013, Mayor Mitch Landrieu - Moon Landrieu's son - and officials with the Canal Street Development Corporation announced a $280,000 project to renovate the Piazza d’Italia, which was in need of additional maintenance and improvement some nine years after its major restoration was accomplished. The first phase of improvements included the installation of more Italian-style landscaping, creating a green screen for visual privacy between the Piazza and the adjacent parking lot, and the development of ADA-compliant restrooms with a new air-conditioning system. Funds for this project came from the Piazza d’Italia Enterprise Fund, controlled by the Canal Street Development Corp. “[These improvements are] not going to be funded with city general fund dollars,” Landrieu said at a news conference held at the site. “The dollars will be coming out of fees generated by the parking that is around this area.” In noting its importance to the local Italian-American community, Mayor Mitch Landrieu pointed out that he has Italian heritage on his mother's side.

Phase I of the renovations has been completed. The second phase was under construction and scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018. This phase restored every element of the fountain that needed repair or replacement, such that its full original conception is restored. The surrounding, city-owned surface parking lots remain undeveloped.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Town square</span> Open public spaces in cities or towns, usually rectilinear, surrounded by buildings

A town square is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. Related concepts are the civic center, the market square and the village green.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">One Atlantic Center</span> Skyscraper in Atlanta, Georgia

One Atlantic Center, also known as IBM Tower, is a skyscraper located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. It is the third tallest building in Atlanta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground Atlanta</span> Shopping mall

Underground Atlanta is a shopping and entertainment district in the Five Points neighborhood of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States, near the Five Points MARTA station. It is currently undergoing renovations. First opened in 1969, it takes advantage of the viaducts built over the city's many railroad tracks to accommodate later automobile traffic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fountain Place</span> Famous skyscraper in downtown Dallas Texas

Fountain Place is a 60-story late-modernist skyscraper in downtown Dallas, Texas. Standing at a structural height of 720 ft (220 m), it is the fifth-tallest building in Dallas, and the 15th-tallest in Texas. A new 45-story sibling tower, AMLI Fountain Place, has been built to its northwest on an adjacent lot.

Charles Willard Moore was an American architect, educator, writer, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and winner of the AIA Gold Medal in 1991. He is often labeled as the father of postmodernism. His work as an educator was important to a generation of American architects who read his books or studied with him at one of the several universities where he taught.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postmodern architecture</span> Architectural style that emerged in the late 1950s

Postmodern architecture is a style or movement which emerged in the late 1950s as a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. The movement was introduced by the architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown and architectural theorist Robert Venturi in their book Learning from Las Vegas. The style flourished from the 1980s through the 1990s, particularly in the work of Scott Brown & Venturi, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore and Michael Graves. In the late 1990s, it divided into a multitude of new tendencies, including high-tech architecture, neo-futurism, new classical architecture, and deconstructivism. However, some buildings built after this period are still considered postmodern.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Orleans Central Business District</span> Neighborhood of New Orleans, United States

The Central Business District (CBD) is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KOIN Center</span> Building in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

KOIN Tower is a 155.15 m (509.0 ft), 35-story, skyscraper in Portland, Oregon, United States. The building, the third-tallest in the city, was designed by the firm of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership and opened in 1984 at a cost of US$48 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ithaca Commons</span> Place of local interest in New York State

The Ithaca Commons is a two-block pedestrian mall in the business improvement district known as Downtown Ithaca that serves as the city's cultural and economic center. The Commons is a popular regional destination, and is filled with upscale restaurants and shops, public art, and frequent community festivals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Kansas City</span>

The architecture of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, especially Kansas City, Missouri, includes major works by some of the world's most distinguished architects and firms, including McKim, Mead and White; Jarvis Hunt; Wight and Wight; Graham, Anderson, Probst and White; Hoit, Price & Barnes; Frank Lloyd Wright; the Office of Mies van der Rohe; Barry Byrne; Edward Larrabee Barnes; Harry Weese; and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horton Plaza (mall)</span> Shopping mall in San Diego, California

Horton Plaza, not to be confused with its adjacent namesake Horton Plaza Park, was a five-level outdoor shopping mall located in downtown San Diego. It was known for its bright colors, architectural tricks, and odd spatial rhythms. It stood on 6.5 city blocks adjacent to the city's historic Gaslamp Quarter. Opening in 1985, it was the first successful downtown retail center since the rise of suburban shopping centers decades earlier. In August 2018, the property was sold to developer Stockdale Capital Partners, which plans to convert it into an office-retail complex. RDC is the architect of record. Nordstrom closed in 2016, leaving a vacant anchor store, and the other major anchor, Macy's, closed in Spring 2020. Contrary to some reports the mall was not demolished. Massive renovations of the mall began in June 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centro direzionale di Napoli</span>

The Centro direzionale is a business district in Naples, Italy close to the Napoli Centrale railway station. Designed by the Japanese architect Kenzō Tange, the entire complex was completed in 1995. It is the first cluster of skyscrapers to have been built in Italy or southern Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cityscape of Lexington, Kentucky</span> Architecture and urbanism in Lexington, Kentucky (USA)

The urban development patterns of Lexington, Kentucky, confined within an urban growth boundary that protects its famed horse farms, include greenbelts and expanses of land between it and the surrounding towns. This has been done to preserve the region's horse farms and the unique Bluegrass landscape, which bring millions of dollars to the city through the horse industry and tourism. Urban growth is also tightly restricted in the adjacent counties, with the exception of Jessamine County, with development only allowed inside existing city limits. In order to prevent rural subdivisions and large homes on expansive lots from consuming the Bluegrass landscape, Fayette and all surrounding counties have minimum lot size requirements, which range from 10 acres (40,000 m2) in Jessamine to fifty in Fayette.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of metropolitan Detroit</span> Architecture style of Metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, USA

The architecture of metropolitan Detroit continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The post-modern neogothic spires of One Detroit Center refer to designs of the city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers. Together with the Renaissance Center, they form the city's distinctive skyline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">City Creek Center</span> Shopping mall in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.

The City Creek Center (CCC) is a mixed-use development with an upscale open-air shopping center, office and residential buildings, fountain, and simulated creek near Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is an undertaking by Property Reserve, Inc. (PRI), the commercial real estate division of the Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Taubman Centers, Inc. (TCI). The CCC integrates shopping and residential elements, with foliage-lined walkways and streams covering two blocks in the heart of downtown Salt Lake. PRI invested in the housing and parking elements of the mall, while TCI owns and operates the shopping center itself. The CCC opened to the general public on March 22, 2012. This shopping, office, and residential center encompass nearly 20 acres (8.1 ha) of downtown Salt Lake City. The City Creek Center is part of an estimated $5 billion sustainable design project to revitalize downtown Salt Lake City. The CCC project itself has been estimated to cost around $1.5 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Detroit International Riverfront</span> Area of Detroit, Michigan that borders the Detroit River

The Detroit International Riverfront is a tourist attraction and landmark of Detroit, Michigan, extending from the Ambassador Bridge in the west to Belle Isle in the east, for a total of 5.5 miles. The International Riverfront encompasses a cruise ship passenger terminal and dock, a marina, a multitude of parks, restaurants, retail shops, skyscrapers, and high rise residential areas along with Huntington Place. The Marriott at the Renaissance Center and the Robert's Riverwalk Hotel are also situated along the International Riverfront. Private companies and foundations together with the city, state, and federal government have contributed several hundred million dollars toward the riverfront development. Key public spaces in the International Riverfront, such as the RiverWalk, Dequindre Cut Greenway and Trail, William G. Milliken State Park and Harbor, and a cruise ship passenger terminal and dock at Hart Plaza complement the architecture of the area. The area provides a venue for a variety of annual events and festivals including the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Detroit Free Press International Marathon, the Detroit International Jazz Festival, Motor City Pride, the North American International Auto Show, River Days and Detroit China Festival. In February 2021, the Detroit International Riverfront was voted best riverwalk in the United States by USA Today readers. It was selected a second time as the best riverwalk in the U.S. in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Jose City Hall</span> Seat of the municipal government of San Jose, California

San José City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of San Jose, California. Located in Downtown San Jose, it was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier in a Postmodern style. It consists of an 18-story tower, an iconic glass rotunda, and a city council chamber wing, laid out within a two-block-long public square known as San José Civic Plaza. The tower rises 285 feet (87 m) above the plaza, making it the fourth tallest building in San Jose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Center</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Charles Center is a large-scale urban redevelopment project in central Baltimore's downtown business district of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Beginning in 1954, a group called the "Committee for Downtown" promoted a master plan for arresting the commercial decline of central Baltimore. In 1955, the "Greater Baltimore Committee", headed by banker and developer James W. Rouse, joined the effort. A plan was developed by noted American urban planner and architect David A. Wallace, (1917−2004), strongly supported by Mayors Thomas L. J. D'Alesandro, Jr. (1947−1959) and Theodore R. McKeldin, and many in their administrations, which formed the basis of a $25 million bond issue voted on by the citizens of Baltimore City during the municipal elections in November 1958. The architects' view of the overall Charles Center Redevelopment Plan with the conceptions of possible buildings, lay-out and plan that was publicized to the voters that spring and summer before, only slightly resembles the actual buildings and designs that later were really constructed by the mid-1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civic Center Plaza</span> Plaza in San Francisco, United States

Civic Center Plaza, also known as Joseph Alioto Piazza, is the 4.53-acre (1.83 ha) plaza immediately east of San Francisco City Hall in Civic Center, San Francisco, in the U.S. state of California. Civic Center Plaza occupies two blocks bounded by McAllister, Larkin, Grove, and Carlton B. Goodlett, divided into a north block and south block by the former alignment of Fulton Street. The block north of Fulton is built over a three-story parking garage ; the block south of Fulton lies over a former exhibition space, Brooks Hall.

References

  1. Freeman, Allen. "That ’70s Show: In New Orleans, the third act begins on a famous outdoor stage", Landscape Architecture, May 2004.

29°56′52″N90°3′59″W / 29.94778°N 90.06639°W / 29.94778; -90.06639 .