ome interesting architectural forms in New Orleans are found in the churches and cemeteries of the area.The earlier built churches are the more interesting for their simplicity of design. St Louis Cathedral is the most famous, but other equally important examples are St Alphonsus Church (built for the English/Irish Catholic congregation), Our Lady of Guadeloupe Chapel (originally built as a mortuary chapel), St Patrick's Cathedral, and St Theresa of Avila Church. All of these were built before 1860, and were constructed entirely of brick by the best craftsmen of the time. They are among the finest examples of masonry churches in the United States. What the later churches lacked in grace and simplicity they made up for in their ornate design. Modified Gothic motifs prevail in most of these later churches, from their lofty spires to the stained glass rose windows. Among the most interesting of these are the Church of the Immaculate Conception (of Byzantine design), St Stephen's Church with it's towering central spire, St John the Baptist Church with it's golden spire, St Mary's Assumption Church (built for the German-speaking Catholic residents), Holy Name of Jesus Church, now part of Loyola University, and St Joseph's Church, the largest of all the New Orleans churches.

Although not as ornate for the most part as the Catholic churches, some of the interesting non-Catholic churches are: Rayne Memorial Methodist Church on St Charles Avenue (1875), with it's tall lighted steeple; Christ Church Cathedral (1886), also on St Charles, the congregation's fourth church; Trinity Episcopal Church (1851), of Victorian/English Gothic design; and the Felicity United Methodist Church (1888), minus it's two original steeples. Many of these same architectural designs and motifs are employed in New Orleans' many cemeteries, and make them some of the most unique in the country. Their fame has become so widespread that little needs to be said about these fascinating cities of the dead. Ever since the beginning, the high water table had made above-ground burial impracticable, so the people of New Orleans were forced to build tombs and crypts, and build they did. They constructed the most ornate, magnificent structures they could afford, even hiring noted architects of the day! As a result, nearly every burial place in the city contains row upon row of tombs built of marble, granite, sandstone, and limestone, and designed in countless variations of architectural styles such as Greek, Gothic, modern, and even Egyptian!

A mention should be made of some of New Orleans' other indigenous architecture. In contrast to the Greek Revival mansions and historic Spanish townhouses, there were of course many houses built on a smaller scale. One of these is the curious form of architecture known as the shotgun house. In many of the lower and middle class sections of the city, in particular the Irish Channel and Lower Garden District, lots were carved up in small slices, similar to any other large city. But instead of building row houses, houses one room wide and several rooms deep were constructed. These dwellings had no separate hallway but rooms built one behind the other with the doors lined up, so that a gun fired through the front door could pass through the entire house and out the back door (thus the name). A variation of the shotgun was the camelback, in which the front is one story and the rear two. New Orleans has many examples of other architectural forms such as Victorian, Queen Anne, and Romanesque, but when it comes to modern architecture the city has but a few samples. These are mostly commercial buildings such as the Hibernia and American Bank Buildings, located in the Central Business District. With every style from colonial to postmodern, the architecture of New Orleans is as fascinating and unique as the history, the culture, and the people.