{"id":7859,"date":"2022-11-07T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/?post_type=stories&p=7859"},"modified":"2023-02-06T16:58:19","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T21:58:19","slug":"black-architecture-walking-tour","status":"publish","type":"stories","link":"https:\/\/adsknews-stg.autodesk.com\/en\/stories\/black-architecture-walking-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections from the New Orleans walking tour of Black architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWater made this land.\u201d This is how Malik Bartholomew, a seventh\u00a0generation New Orleanian and founder of\u00a0Know NOLA Tours<\/a>, kicked off his tour of African influences on the city\u2019s architecture. He starts each walking tour of Black architecture with this phrase to highlight how the ground that New Orleans is built upon was once submerged in the Gulf of Mexico, and how over millennia the Mississippi River deposited the soil that would become the land we were now standing on.

\"Walking

Malik Bartholomew, founder of Know NOLA Tours, led a group of AU attendees on a walking tour of Black architecture.<\/p><\/div> For the first time, this year\u2019s Autodesk University<\/a> (AU) was held in New Orleans. An advantage of a new location was the opportunity to explore a different city, its history, culture, and\u00a0architecture\u2013and connect that back to the industry and technology trends discussed at AU. In my role at Autodesk, I lead the Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) Audiences Marketing team and find that this intersectionality is where we see the true value our industry creates.

\"Smiling

Hosting AU in a new location offered an exciting opportunity to absorb a different city, its history, culture, and architecture.<\/p><\/div> As part of AU, my team wanted to offer our customers a different take on the popular Community Meet-up program. With only 2 percent of U.S. architects<\/a> identifying as Black or African American and the country\u2019s leading architecture and engineering firms in attendance, we sought to put the spotlight on the significant contributions Black and African architects made to the industry. It was my pleasure to co-host one of these Know NOLA walking tours of Black architecture and discover the positive outcomes we see when architects come from the communities they\u2019re tasked to build. <\/p>\n

Touring Trem\u00e9 and the French Quarter<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It felt like we were going back in time while walking through Trem\u00e9, the oldest Black neighborhood in the U.S. Throughout this portion of the tour, Malik told stories that highlighted an existential struggle against an unhospitable environment. For example, New Orleans was a swamp: humid, hot, and rife with mosquitoes. Despite the abundance of crawfish, oysters, and alligators, it was only when the French colonists brought over enslaved Africans, who knew how to cultivate rice, that they developed a stable food source.

\"New

Much of the New Orleans architecture is reminiscent of both north-central France and West Africa.<\/p><\/div> But the enslaved Africans brought more than just agricultural skills with them. Their ingenuity and artistry are what makes New Orleans\u2019 neighborhoods so extraordinary. The intricate ironwork in the French Quarter includes hidden African symbols to signal to each other and those who would come after: \u201cWe were here, we did not forget where we came from, and we left our mark.\u201d\u00a0\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b In their colonization of the region, the French wanted to literally build a new Orl\u00e9ans and replicated features seen throughout north-central France that they knew would naturally cool their houses such as shutters, tall windows, high ceilings and front to back rooms. Other features like inner courtyards and porches designed for outdoor living reminded me of the family compounds you can still find today all over West Africa.

\"White

Shutters and tall ceilings adorned homes throughout the tour.<\/p><\/div> While on the tour, someone asked about the people who used to live in the houses of Trem\u00e9, now beautifully restored. In response, Malik explained that New Orleans was one of the few cities where enslaved Africans could buy their freedom to join a growing community of Africans arriving from France, biracial locals, and freed Black tradesmen and women. Skills like carpentry and ironwork could provide a path to that freedom. The formerly enslaved passed these skills on to the next generation, who then used them to build the houses that we were now admiring in Trem\u00e9.

\"New

Many of the homes throughout Trem\u00e9 have been restored to showcase their artistry.<\/p><\/div> Malik talked of neighborhood schools with marble floors and cypress trims. Education was a matter this community took especially seriously, which is obvious through the architecture. The local community center is also of great importance. Civil rights leaders Jerome Smith and Rudy Lombard worked there, building on a musical tradition that also shaped Louis Armstrong, who played music in the Storyville section of Trem\u00e9.

\"Community

The community center has offered a space for Trem\u00e9 residents to connect for generations.<\/p><\/div> <\/p>\n

Water\u2019s impact<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When talking about water, the element that can make an area both desirable and inhospitable at the same time, Malik quoted his mother who calls anyone a fool who builds their house on the ground. \u201cA swamp is a swamp and will always be a swamp,\u201d she said after Hurricane Katrina. The struggle to keep water out of New Orleans is older than the city itself. Black and Indigenous communities have long advocated to live with the water instead of fighting it. Yet it took one of the most disastrous hurricanes to ever make landfall in the U.S. and a new generation of urban planners and civil engineers, like\u00a0Meagan Williams, to finally convince the city to take a new approach<\/a>. Rather than trying to tame the water with levees, the city is now using green space and vacant lots to capture and then slowly release it into the waterways.