Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence

a conversation with Tara Dudley

This lecture is free and open to the public.
Registration is appreciated.
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April 27, 2023
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Architecture Center Houston
902 Commerce Street
Houston, TX 77002

Brought to you by the ArCH Exhibitions and Programs

Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence a Conversation with Tara A. Dudley
Thursday, April 27, 6pm
Architecture Center Houston, 902 Commerce, 77002
Purchase the book and Register Here


Presented by Architecture Center Houston, AIA Houston's Justice Equity: Diversity and Inclusivity Collective and The National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) Houston Chapter.

Join author Tara A. Dudley for a reading and conversation with Gregory Benjamin, AIA and Lindsey Williams, Assoc. AIA, NOMA of her award-winning book, Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence, a deeply researched examination of the free 19th-century Black craftsmen and real estate developers who transformed the cultural and architectural legacy of New Orleans. Highlighting excerpts from the book, Dr. Dudley will discuss her motivations, process, and methodologies to tell a story of the architectural activities and influence of gens de couleur libres—free people of color—and how they expressed group identity through property ownership and built culture in New Orleans.

Approved for 1.25 LUs

About the Author:
Dr. Tara A. Dudley is an Assistant Professor in The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, where she teaches architectural history and interior design history courses. In her research and scholarship, she engages untold histories and works to demystify the process, paths, and methods of marginalized contributors to the built environment and reassert their historic agency with an emphasis of African American builders and architects in the US South. Her work reflects an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cultural resources with a focus on nineteenth-century American design, African American architectural history, historic preservation, and material culture. She is the author of Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence (University of Texas Press, 2021), winner of the Association of American Publishers 2022 Prose Award in Architecture & Urban Planning, 2022 Summerlee Book Prize in Nonfiction from the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast), 2022 Best Book Prize Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH), and the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning 2022 On the Brinck Award.

Top image: Layout of habitation on Esplanade Avenue. Plan book 65A, folio 63. Courtesy of Hon. Chelsey Richard Napoleon, Clerk of Civil District Court, Parish of Orleans


Winner:
* 2022 American Association of Publishers Prose Award in Architecture and Urban Planning
* 2022 Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast at Lamar University Summerlee Book Prize - Non-Fiction
*2022 Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH) Best Book Prize