The elaborate use of ironwork permeates throughout the architecture within the French Quarter of New Orleans. Some of them were
wrought one by one, requiring great skill and strength with a hammer:
…other iron features were
cast into a mold allowing exact duplicates to be made:
…and still others are a combination of wrought iron and cast iron:
Most famously, ironwork is used in the railings for the balconies and galleries that are so prominent in the New Orleans architecture. Balconies project out and are extensions of an upper floor:
Galleries are supported by columns or posts reaching to the ground and therefore usually the width of the sidewalk.:
If you’ve ever been to New Orleans during a heat wave or been caught in a rainstorm there, I don’t have to tell you what a great benefit the galleries are.
