Scoring Everyday Rhythms: Improvising the Edges of Louis Armstrong Park

Abstract

New Orleans—shaped by layers of European colonialism and African diasporic resilience—finds its most vivid expression in the Tremé district, where jazz once wove together heritage, community bonds, and individual voice. Yet mid‑century “urban renewal” severed these ties: the erection of Louis Armstrong Park and the Interstate 10 overpass carved a deep void through Tremé’s social fabric and fractured its cultural landscape.

This thesis adopts jazz’s inherent improvisational logic to reexamine the park’s latent “event dimensions,” tracing currents of movement, sound, and structural thresholds. Through a notational framework—mapping archival rhythms of second‑line parades, pedestrian flows, and acoustic zones—it proposes adaptable interventions that bridge historic fragments with contemporary needs. Grounded in Tremé’s layered past and its enduring musical legacy, the project reconceives Louis Armstrong Park as a living stage: an architectural composition that orchestrates collective memory, cultural expression, and social resilience across past, present, and future.