The One Canal Place Building is a Modern Style skyscraper designed by August Perez & Associates, and built in 1979 in New Orleans, LA.
Its precise street address is 365 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA. You can also find it on the map here.
The building underwent a major restoration between 2005 and 2006.
August Perez & Associates was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.
That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Morphy Makofsky Inc in charge of Structural Engineering.
The One Canal Place Building can be categorized as a Modern Style building.
The modern style, also referred to as Modernism in the U.S. (distinct from the European Modernist movement), is characterized by minimal ornamentation, clean lines, and the use of materials such as glass, steel, and concrete. This style prioritizes functionality and the honest expression of materials and structure.
Modern architecture in the U.S. follows many principles of the International Style but with slightly less rigid rules than those of the purist European International Stylists like Le Corbusier, or even those who imported the style to the U.S. like Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.
Modern skyscrapers often feature expansive glass curtain walls, open floor plans, and focus on volume over mass. This blend of innovation and simplicity defined the modern skyscraper, creating the sleek, functional urban landscapes prominent in mid-20th-century U.S. architecture.
By their own nature, the Modern and International Styles can still look current, even in contemporary buildings. So that's not to say the One Canal Place Building appeared old or outdated when it was completed, but August Perez & Associates certainly did not take many risks when it came to choosing the design style. This made the building look more "classic" and integrated within the city's architecture.
The One Canal Place Building reaches an architectural height of 440ft (134m). It has a total of 32 floors.
In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 1650 spots available, which roughly equals 52 spots per floor (above ground).
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1979, the One Canal Place Building has mainly been used as Commercial space, with other complementary uses such as retail space.
The first three floors house a shopping center with retail stores, restaurants, and theaters. The upper floors are occupied by offices.
On the 29th floor, there is a swimming pool, a gym, and a restaurant.
The parking garage, with a capacity of 1,650 spaces, is located in an adjacent 10-story building shared with the Westin New Orleans Canal Place Hotel.
The One Canal Place Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete and steel slabs.
A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.
The facade of the building however, is load bearing. This doesn't imply that it is a traditional load-bearing wall. Rather, it means that the structure's exterior pillars have been pushed to the very edges, becoming integrated with the facade, and therefore, technically, a part of it.
From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features panels with white spandrels and drak glass windows, which together with the white columns create a rectangular grid that repeats all the way from the third floor to the top of the building.
The lower levels, dedicated to retail, have a slightly different composition, and the 4th floor features a series of inverted V-shaped beams, which separate the tower from the base.