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(Photograph by Karen Kingsley)
Although this thirteen-story apartment building occupies the full width of its block, its concrete exterior framing system of shallow pointed arches and alternating mullions sets up a crisp and lively pattern across the wide facade, moderating a sense of weight and size. The building is lifted on angled, tapered piers and the central entrance is marked by a cantilevered concrete canopy in a folded design that almost gives the impression of a billowing canvas tent. This is an elegant design for these luxury apartments.
August Perez and Associates also designed the thirteen-story former Wohl Apartments (now the Avenue Plaza Hotel) opposite at 2111 St. Charles. Completed in 1951, the modernist building’s plain smooth walls are enlivened by an alternating pattern of windows and projecting frames. Next to it at 2031 St. Charles, Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth’s twelve-story Pontchartrain Hotel is notable for the intricacy of its brickwork and Mediterranean-styled details. Completed in 1927 as a residential hotel with efficiency apartments, it was converted to a regular hotel in 1940 and renovated in 2016 by Trapolin-Peer Architects; its rooftop terrace is a prime destination. These three highrise buildings illuminate changing tastes in twentieth-century architectural fashion.