Letter from the President: 533 Royal Renovation and Closure

Over the coming months we will learn, through architectural and historical investigation of the structures themselves, what must and can be done. Four expert firms have been chosen to assist in this effort, building on months of research, preparation, and evaluation conducted by HNOC staff, leadership, and our board of directors.

Heritage Resource Management Consultants, an independent firm run by Brent Fortenberry, director of the historic preservation program in the Tulane University School of Architecture, will generate a historic-structures report using 3D laser scans of the buildings, materials analysis, and archaeology as needed.

In addition to Heritage Resource Management, HNOC has hired two architecture firms and one museum design firm to assist in the 533 Royal project. New Orleans firm Trapolin-Peer Architects will join forces with Hartman-Cox of Washington, DC, to carry out design work on the structures, while the Philadelphia-based firm Metcalfe Architecture and Design will help reimagine the buildings as museum spaces.

HNOC staff and leadership will work closely with these firms throughout the course of the project to ensure that the result meets the high standards set during The Collection’s decades of care. Though the permanent exhibition at 533 Royal Street, the Louisiana History Galleries, is now closed, many of the artifacts displayed there will move over to 520 Royal Street, in the French Quarter Galleries, to remain on view. The Williams Residence, once home to our founders General L. Kemper and Leila Williams, will eventually be returned to service as a house museum, giving visitors a portal into French Quarter life as it was lived in the mid-20th century. Outcomes for other spaces on campus, some of which have housed offices for HNOC staff members for many years, are yet to be discovered.

I invite you to follow our progress on this ambitious undertaking by following our social media accounts, subscribing to our weekly email newsletter, and checking back here at hnoc.org for updates.

Stewardship of the history and culture of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Gulf South is an ongoing but ultimately greatly rewarding calling. The 533 Royal Street project is HNOC’s next great expression of that mission.

Daniel Hammer
President and CEO
The Historic New Orleans Collection