For 50 years, the Contemporary Arts Center has made room for artists to experiment in New Orleans. At 900 Camp Street, a former commercial building became a home for contemporary art and, in 2017, The Shop Workspace. As we approach a decade here, we’re celebrating the institution that made this address our home and looking toward its next 50 years.
A place artists made possible
The CAC began with artists. Its origins in 1976 grew out of a belief that New Orleans needed space for ambitious contemporary work and exchange across disciplines. That conviction still matters in a city whose cultural identity is inseparable from the people making things here, right now.
Painting and sculpture sit within a broader story that includes photography, installation, theater, dance, sound, and music. Across these forms, the CAC has given artists a place to test ideas and audiences a place to encounter them. The institution’s anniversary is a celebration of that ongoing work, and of the people who have sustained it.
For us, being upstairs comes with an appreciation of what was already here. Long before The Shop welcomed its first members, artists were giving this building a purpose that reached well beyond its walls.
Explore the CAC’s history and mission
The many lives of 900 Camp Street
The building’s history reaches further back than the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans. Before exhibitions and performances, this address served the working life of New Orleans. Architectural Record documents earlier uses that included printing, light manufacturing, law offices, and a ground-floor Sears & Roebuck. The building also has ties to K&B, the locally rooted drugstore business familiar to generations of New Orleanians.
Those layers are part of what makes the address compelling. This was a building used for practical, everyday purposes before artists began imagining what else it could hold. Its conversion into an arts center gave an existing structure a new civic role.
An arts institution with a home of its own
The CAC’s arrival helped establish an arts presence in a Warehouse District facing disinvestment. Its commitment to the neighborhood was consequential: artists and audiences brought activity to a place whose future was still taking shape.
The building continued to change around that work. A 1990 renovation by Concordia introduced the dramatic atrium that remains central to its architecture. In 1999, Sydney Besthoff gifted the building to the CAC, a milestone the institution recognizes in its own account of 900 Camp Street.
Owning a historic building also means caring for it. By the time The Shop entered the picture, the upper floors represented an opportunity to bring more consistent use to the property while helping support its future. The question was how to do that in a way that made sense alongside an active arts institution.
The Shop joins the story
In 2017, The Domain Companies opened The Shop on the CAC’s third and fourth floors. Designed by EskewDumezRipple, the project brought coworking into a building already organized around creative possibility. It also became the starting point for The Shop Workspace.
The partnership had a practical purpose. As the Preservation Resource Center reported at the opening, the arrangement combined building restoration with a new source of monthly rental income for the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans. Putting underused space to work could contribute to the stewardship of the building and the institution within it.
That relationship is an important part of our story. Our first location grew inside a place with its own identity, audience, and artistic mission. We were joining something established, with an opportunity to contribute to its continued life.
A building you can still read
The design of The Shop lets the building’s earlier life remain visible. Heavy timber framing and the scale of the upper floors give the workspace its character. EskewDumezRipple opened the interior to create a two-story commons and connected the levels with an architectural staircase that makes movement through the space part of the experience.
Around it, shared seating and work areas give people reasons to spend time outside an individual office. The architecture supports the kind of workplace we wanted to create: welcoming, useful, and open to conversation. The old building remains a daily presence in how the space feels and functions.
Approaching a decade at the CAC
As we approach ten years at 900 Camp Street, we’re grateful that our workdays take place within this larger story. The Shop brings a workplace rhythm to the upper floors, while the CAC continues its work as a platform for artists and contemporary practice. Each has a distinct purpose, and sharing an address creates an unusual closeness between them.
For a member choosing where to spend the workweek, that setting has meaning. A building’s use, history, and neighbors shape the experience of arriving there. At the CAC, the context includes an institution that has spent decades making space for new ideas.
That experience continues to inform The Shop as we grow. From our original CAC location to SOMA in New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Brooklyn, we care about creating workplaces that belong to their surroundings. Here, that connection began with an arts institution and a historic building that already had so much to say.
Explore The Shop Workspace and our locations
Looking toward the next 50 years
The most meaningful way to celebrate an arts institution is to stay involved in its present. See an exhibition. Attend a performance. Bring someone who has never visited. Consider becoming a CAC member or making a contribution. A 50-year history is made possible by people continuing to participate.
The CAC’s own anniversary message looks ahead with attention to artists, audiences, and the relationships that will shape its future. We share that sense of responsibility as one of its building partners. Our place in the story is to keep making thoughtful use of our corner of 900 Camp Street, with respect for the institution we call home.
To the artists, staff, supporters, and audiences who have carried the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans through its first 50 years: thank you. We’re proud to be part of this building’s continuing life, and excited to see what the next generation makes here.