Classical Revival in Santiago, Cuba, above, and Restored
Esplanade Ridge homes, New Orleans, below left.
Cap-Hatien Architecture Identical to French Quarter
Sometimes those views transport us in both time and space. A splendid old neoclassical home with a fine front porch rudely converted into a truck loading dock, top, is in Santiago, Cuba, but evokes scenes once common in this city before preservationists transformed them into specimens like those on Esplanade Ridge in the photo just below. Similarly, a street scene in Cap-Haitian, above, is startlingly like the French Quarter buildings along N. Peters Street, while a Panama City scene, left, could almost be in Treme. Even a spooky Port-au-Prince Victorian in Haiti, bottom, is clearly related to certain of its New Orleans Creole cousins. With insightful essays by John Lawrence and Jay D. Edwards, the book allows us to look deeply into the soul of this city through its expanded overview of the colors, flora and design similarities we share with our tropical kin--affinities that extend to the minutest details of artist studios, living spaces, shops, bars and music clubs. A perfect complement to his landmark tome of two decades ago, New Orleans: Elegance and Decadence, Sexton's Creole World is more than just a reminder of who we are as a city, it's a manifesto celebrating the cultures for whom the art of living is the greatest art form of all. ~Bookhardt
Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere by Richard Sexton, Through Dec. 7, Historic New Orleans Collection, Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres St. 523-4662