For the Haiti Challenge, the Architecture for Humanity team provided on-the-ground reports from Haiti.
I was corrected the other day during a presentation of my trip to Haiti.
I had just brought the audience to Jacmel, talking about its architectural distinction and its striking resemblance to New Orleans, and speculating there was some direct influence between the two cities. Then Cameron, from the wings, offered some insight: Jacmel was a huge regional exporter of coffee beans, shipping their product to Europe. On the return trips, the coffee merchants needed ballast to weigh their ships down, so they threw iron railings, column, and other building parts into the holds.
There was strong enough demand for them, to be sure, after a huge fire scoured Jacmel in 1895. The railings and other prefabricated building parts would be exchanged for coffee beans in Jacmel and contributed to a rebuilt, stylistically consistent downtown–what would later become the historic district.
But what about New Orleans’ “French Quarter?” A century prior, the Big Easy received a huge influx of Haitians and French in the midst of the island nation’s slave revolts that somewhat infamously led to independence.
New Orleans has absorbed a ton of Haitian culture, but the wrought iron balconies don’t count themselves part of this cultural transfer.
New Orleans had this ironwork from BEFORE French occupation, back when it was under Spanish control. So the apparent similarities may be of European origin, but most likely the two architectures evolved so closely simply due to the climatic similarities between the two towns: consistent heat and humidity call for taller, airier spaces, floor-to-ceiling operable windows (or French doors, basically) abundant shading of exterior walls and year-round useable outdoor space.
Voilà.
Photos courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons users ambafranceht (Jacmel) and katieharbath (NOLA).
