The Patrons

Abstract

Behind every building stands a patron, the individual or organization that commissions the design. In their relations with the architect, patrons can be domineering or self-effacing, visionary or pragmatic, open-minded or downright mulish. New Orleans, like any city, offers a gallery of all types of patrons. At one extreme stands the board of La Banque de l'État de la Louisiane, which in 1818 charged the great Benjamin Henry Latrobe with nothing more specific than to design a porticoed office, “which in its construction shall unite both convenience and taste.”¹ The former Surveyor of Public Buildings under Thomas Jefferson produced a tour de force. On the other extreme stands the Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba, the red-haired whirlwind who in the 1840s and 1850s conceived, financed, and all but designed the impressive row houses facing Jackson Square.