Curtis and Davis Project Photographs

Curtis and Davis Architects and Engineers was founded in 1947 by Nathaniel Cortlandt Curtis, Jr. (1917-1997) and Arthur Quentin Davis (1920-2011). Both Curtis and Davis were born in New Orleans, and both graduated from Tulane University School of Architecture. Curtis was the son of another New Orleans architect and Tulane School of Architecture professor, Nathaniel Cortlandt Curtis, Sr. (1881-1953). Davis studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard and received his Master’s in Architecture from that university in 1946.

In New Orleans and the broader region of Louisiana, the firm designed sizable mid-to-later 20th century buildings, including the New Orleans Public Library, Automotive Life Insurance, Cabrini Church, the Rivergate, the Louisiana Superdome, and many others. They were also responsible for many of the area’s early Modernist residences. Outside Louisiana, the firm was successful in designing buildings throughout the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. Buildings included the IBM Building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, and the Medical Center of the Free University in West Berlin.

The firm was dissolved in 1978. Curtis and Davis went on to form their own firms. Curtis was the principal designer for 1996 alterations to the original Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University. Built in 1940, his father, Nathaniel C. Curtis, Sr. had a large hand in the design of Howard-Tilton, working in the office of Moise Goldstein, the architect of the building. Davis went on to design the New Orleans Arena, which sits next to their Louisiana Superdome, now the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.