New Orleans 1867 [Hardcover]

Guy A. Van Zante is presently Curator of Architecture and Design at MIT. For eight years up until 2002, he was curator of Southeastern Architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans. He's working on two book projects of historic New Orleans architecture. Van Zante's background, including regional roots and high-level, visible academic positions, makes him the ideal author for this work. He describes his project, "This book is about a city ad its aspirations, and a photographer and his ambitions, and how they cam together to create a powerful image of city building to a world audience." The photographer Lilienthal was German born. Though prominent in his day, he is largely unknown today. When he died in 1894 with no successors, his most significant photographic work--namely the 150 or so New Orleans photographs recorded here--became lost to the public. They turned up--of all places--in 1906 among the family heirlooms of Napoleon III in Arenenberg, Switzerland, where the Emperor lived as a boy. The collection eventually came to be exhibited in New Orleans in 2000. It is virtually priceless since there are no known negatives and only one duplicate print.

Though the first book covering this major historical find, Van Zante's book is definitive in that cannot be surpassed in expertise nor in scope and thoroughness. Unfailingly through the book's architectonic structure and its labyrinth of pertinent and frequently colorful details, Van Zante remains an authoritative director. With curatorial respect for the importance and uniqueness of the material and confidence in its power to speak for itself (no doubt from his authoritativeness), Van Zante only minimally engages in other than assuring that the book's structure best serves the photographs and respective commentary and controlling the flow of myriad detail into the structure. Most of the detail provides background for individual photos culled from "stories of travelers, journalists, and diarists." Each one of Lilienthal's photographs is shown with adjacent relevant period writings. Well-chosen passages from these varied source documents are skillfully and knowledgeably woven together to note specifics of the respective photograph and give it context. So ones learns not only about particular locations at the time, but also much about New Orleans social history, especially commerce, civic groups, and public buildings.

Van Zante begins a Postscript dated August 2007 to the prepared Preface, "New Orleans has been shaped by disaster perhaps more than any other major American city." Disasters followed by extensive reconstruction of areas of the city include not only the destruction from the Civil War prompting Lilienthal's historic photographs, but also floods, hurricanes, fires, and epidemics. The latest flood caused by the hurricane Katrina was a disaster of epic proportion rivaling and perhaps surpassing the damage from the Civil War. Van Zante compares the questions and challenges of reconstruction, revitalization, and continuity facing New Orleans today with those facing the city in the wake of the Civil War; thus deepening attachment to the photographs by suggesting that after Katrina they are not only unique, irreplaceable historical artifacts, but also sources of guidance and encouragement on how New Orleans has overcome previous disasters. Van Zante uses part of the August 2007 postscript also to note which parts of the city seen in the photographs were affected by Katrina and which parts were not touched.

What a disappointment! This promised to be a book with and about photos. And by the size of the volume it could have been. But the author seem to have no appreciation for the pictures other than a purely academic one. The small size of the photos almost entirely deprives the reader of his own exploration and instead relies on the accompanying text to "see" the details. And why the almost endless footnotes/bibliography? Many of the relevant details are hidden in those lists and could have been included in the descriptions. Anything else could have been "stowed away" in the back of the book and given room for a better display of the great images. - The author with his words draws an insightful picture of the time in NO. But Lillienthal's photos seem to be relegated to illustrate those words. Very disappointing

The photos are quite beautiful and it's great to see images that haven't been seen as one single collection for so long, but the photos could have been printed in a larger format, and I found the text could have been better researched and presented more cohesively. The text reads like a long exhibition catalog.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 7 reviews  4.1 out of 5 stars