Katrina’s toll on treasures

As the floodwaters recede in New Orleans and disaster relief agencies help thousands of people cope with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, a glimmer of hope is emerging from museums and other cultural organizations along the Gulf Coast.

Some institutions suffered severe damage, but many seem to have come through the colossal storm in relatively good shape. With phone lines down and other means of communication mostly out of operation, it is difficult to get a clear picture, but early reports have been more optimistic than might have been expected.

Perhaps the most significant artistic loss in the region was of two early Frank Lloyd Wright residences in the coastal town of Ocean Springs, Miss.

The Louis Sullivan bungalow and servants’ quarters and the James Charnley bungalow -- all built in the early 1890s -- were completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, according to William Allin Storrer, an adjunct professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and a leading scholar of the famed architect. The destruction was confirmed by a spokeswoman in the Ocean Springs mayor’s office who declined to give her name.

“The loss of any Frank Lloyd Wright property is horrible,” said Beverly Hart, head of communications at Taliesin West, the center of Wright studies in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Given the scale of the disaster, the focus is elsewhere, but the loss of these buildings is very sad. We are sorry that it had to happen this way.”

Among the hurricane’s other architectural victims, but one that is expected to recover, was the partially completed Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, Miss. The $30-million, five-building complex designed by architect Frank O. Gehry took a big hit from a Grand Casino gambling barge that was flung ashore onto the construction site.

The museum, which had been expected to open next July, was conceived as a cultural tourist attraction that would house a private collection of ceramics by the turn-of-the-century Gulf Coast artist George Ohr along with a broad range of other artworks. But the barge was swept onto the seaside property at the height of the storm. It hit several buildings and landed on a historic house next to the museum’s Gallery of African American Art, which was largely destroyed.

Another historic house that had been moved and restored as part of the new museum was demolished. The frame of the George Ohr Gallery was transformed from a soaring composition of curvilinear beams to a flattened, twisted mess. The Center for Ceramics, also under construction, reportedly survived unscathed. The ceramics collection -- stored in a separate facility -- was untouched by the hurricane.

Gehry, who was in Japan and unavailable for comment, told a reporter for the Mississippi coast online newspaper the Sun Herald that he would help rebuild the museum and that he was more concerned about the people than the buildings.

IN New Orleans, the major visual art institutions sustained relatively little damage.

The New Orleans Museum of Art, which displays a broad collection of American, European and Asian art in a stately building in City Park, survived with its facilities and collections nearly intact. Several museum employees stayed on the site during the hurricane to guard the collection.

Some works in the museum’s sculpture garden were taken inside before the winds came, but “Virlane Tower,” a 45-foot-tall abstract sculpture by Kenneth Snelson that could not be moved, was twisted and destroyed.

A preliminary report from staff members of the Contemporary Arts Center -- which presents an interdisciplinary, international program of new art -- indicated that the building suffered relatively minor damage from windows blown out and broken by the wind.

A curator at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art -- an affiliate of the University of New Orleans dedicated to the art and culture of the American South -- reported that the museum weathered the disaster and emerged in fine shape.

Another historic residence, Rowan Oak, the home of author William Faulkner in Oxford, Miss., suffered no hurricane damage, curator William Griffith said Wednesday. “A little bit of the roof on the barn blew off, but it didn’t leak. We’ve repaired it already,” he said.

In Biloxi, a home of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir, suffered significant damage but was still standing, according to Hank Holmes, director of archives and history at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Miss. Ken P’Pool, deputy state historic preservation officer, told National Public Radio that he believed much of the main house could be restored.

SOME musical venues had good news as well. The legendary jazz institution Preservation Hall in New Orleans and the club Tipitina’s suffered little from the storm. And a spokesman for JazzFest said that, although there had been some flooding on the festival grounds, the annual event would be back.

The American Assn. of Museums, which represents about 3,000 organizations, has compiled a list of post-hurricane conditions at museums and other cultural institutions from sources at the organizations and news reports.

The list is posted on the association’s website, www.aam-us.org, along with a guide to federal and technical aid in the recovery effort.