The mortuary architecture of Jacques Nicolas Bussiere de Pouill

Jacques Nicolas Bussiere de Pouilly (1804-1875) was perhaps the best-trained and most imaginative architect practicing in mid-nineteenth century New Orleans. In addition to several notable buildings, his legacy includes a sketchbook now owned by the Historic New Orleans Collection. Within this design repository are 130 designs for funerary monuments dated between 1834 and 1874. This paper analyzes de Pouilly's drawings and remaining tombs and traces the influences which shaped his character as a designer.;De Pouilly left Paris for New Orleans in 1833, obviously having encountered the ideas of young rebels at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts whose rejection of academic Classicism opened French architecture to eclecticism, historical revivalism, and architectural coloration and eventually gave rise to the style known as Neo-Grec. De Pouilly was also inspired by the work of other French architects, as well as by monuments in the famous Parisian cemetery Pere La Chaise. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).