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Rabouin High School was built by E. A. Christy in 1936, while he was working as the New Orleans city architect. Christy designed a number of schools during his time in that position in an eclectic variety of styles popular at the time. Rabouin is one of only two which he designed in the Art Deco style, the other being Elanor McMain School in 1932. The Art Deco style was quite popular at the time and is closely linked with Works Progress Administration projects being funded across the country at the time. Rabouin has been a public school for the entirety of its existence. It is located on Carondelet Street in the Central Business District, an area which once had a much denser urban fabric than it does today and as a result of the partial breakdown of this urban fabric the neighborhood has become a patchwork of uses ranging from skyscraper office towers to small businesses to schools and residences. The school is a constant in a changing landscape and should be documented both because it is of interest as a building and because what remains of the fabric of the Central Business District needs to be saved from a future as a series of parking lots.
By Mara Saxer
2 comments:
Christie actually designed several other schools in the Art Deco style, notably the Frederick Douglas School on St. Claude Ave and the William Frantz School on N.Galvez, which is listed on the National Register for its role in the desegregration of public schools in New Orleans:
http://www.crt.state.la.us/hp/nhl/search_results.asp?search_type=historicname&value=Frantz%2C+William+School&pageno=1
As City Architect, Christie was probably one of the most prolific architects in New Orleans in the first half of the 20th C. There are very few neighborhoods in New Orleans without a Christie building.
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