New Orleans National Jazz Center and Park

In Urban Design

The New Orleans Jazz Park offers an optimistic vision to reactivate the city after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Despite the city’s enormous losses, its musical heritage remains undiminished, offering a hopeful way to rebuild the city both physically and psychologically.

Posted: Sep 7th, 2011 / Last Edited: Sep 14th, 2011 Print

Description

The New Orleans Jazz Park offers an optimistic vision to reactivate the city after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Despite the city’s enormous losses, its musical heritage remains undiminished, offering a hopeful way to rebuild the city both physically and psychologically. Even before Hurricane Katrina, downtown New Orleans suffered from neglect: certain buildings fell victim to disuse and urban isolation, with many structures outdated or abandoned. The hurricane compounded the damage and made obvious the need to rebuild the area.

Developed in response to a request to design an iconic jazz center for down-town, the proposal is an investigation into whether one building can catalyze rejuvenation and capitalize on larger potential. By linking to adjacent buildings and shared community greens beyond the site boundary, we drew together the neighboring Civil District Court, City Hall, Louisiana State Office Building, Supreme Court, Hyatt Hotel, Superdome, and Union Station to fuse the political and cultural worlds of New Orleans into a backbone for the city.

An intensive hub of culture and jazz, the new area is anchored by the National Jazz Center, a destination for world-class jazz. Across Poydras Street, new civic buildings array around a 6.5-acre activated public space with outdoor performance venues and programmed green space.

New Orleans National Jazz Center and Park
The New Orleans Jazz Park offers an optimistic vision to reactivate the city after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Despite the city’s enormous losses, its musical heritage remains undiminished, offering a hopeful way to rebuild the city both physically and psychologically. Even before Hurricane Katrina, downtown New Orleans suffered from neglect: certain buildings fell victim to disuse and urban isolation, with many structures outdated or abandoned. The hurricane compounded the damage and made obvious the need to rebuild the area.

Developed in response to a request to design an iconic jazz center for down-town, the proposal is an investigation into whether one building can catalyze rejuvenation and capitalize on larger potential. By linking to adjacent buildings and shared community greens beyond the site boundary, we drew together the neighboring Civil District Court, City Hall, Louisiana State Office Building, Supreme Court, Hyatt Hotel, Superdome, and Union Station to fuse the political and cultural worlds of New Orleans into a backbone for the city.

An intensive hub of culture and jazz, the new area is anchored by the National Jazz Center, a destination for world-class jazz. Across Poydras Street, new civic buildings array around a 6.5-acre activated public space with outdoor performance venues and programmed green space.

New Orleans National Jazz Center and Park
Less -