About the Guild

The New Orleans Master Crafts Guild (NOMCG) was founded on a simple but urgent premise: the irreplaceable built heritage of New Orleans — its wrought-iron balconies, hand-carved cypress millwork, ornate plasterwork, and hand-laid brick — can only survive if the human knowledge that created it survives too.

For generations, the skills of the master ironworker, the finish carpenter, the plastering artisan, and the heritage roofer were passed down through informal apprenticeship and community transmission. The pressures of industrialization, displacement, and economic instability have eroded those transmission pathways. NOMCG exists to rebuild them.

We do this by connecting master craftsmen — men and women who carry this living knowledge — with the next generation of artisans through structured apprenticeship programs. We support those craftsmen with business development resources so their trades are economically viable. And we celebrate the cultural significance of their work through public programming that builds the appreciation and patronage these crafts require to survive.

New Orleans is one of the great architectural cities of the world. Its character is inseparable from the skill of the craftspeople who built it and who maintain it today. NOMCG exists to ensure that the city's next century is shaped by the same standard of craft as its first.

We are based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and serve craftspeople and communities throughout the Gulf South.