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20 years ago, The Amazing Ms. D and I bought this magnet. Santa Fe style is a combination of Spanish and Indian esthetic. Native art and jewelry, Southwest architecture and housewares and a laid back and relaxed life style. All of which on occasion can be taken to extreme. When we visited a few days ago we found out that Santa Fe style is still in full force, but we also found a lot about Santa Fe that we really liked.
The Santa Fe Museum of Art
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| The Santa Fe Museum of Art |
More than anything this museum may be the heart of Santa Fe. The museum looks like it is an old building that has been refurbished, but its history is much more interesting.
New Mexico became a state in 1912. By 1915 some of its biggest boosters and brightest minds were worried that its traditional culture was disappearing. Traditional adobe houses were being torn down and replaced with newer brick buildings, and you thought gentrification was a new phenomenon. So some of the civic leaders developed a plan for to save the center of town. They wanted to build a cultural center in the adobe style to serve a model.
They commissioned a set of plans for the museum and then petitioned the Governor to build the New Mexico pavilion at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in the same style
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The pavilion was a hit and and the state chipped 50% of the needed money to build the museum in Santa Fe.
Today the museum is wonderful example of architecture and furnishings. Here are some pictures of the lobby:
The work on the table and chairs is not inlay, they are carved and then painted.
The lobby opens on to a courtyard that is decorated with murals commissioned as part of the WPA:
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| Find it in Your Heart – Judy Chicago |
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| Find it in Your Heart (detail) Judy Chicago |
Santa Fe Art
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| The Amazing Ms. D with Listening Monument by Liz Wolf |
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| Your Author with Dreams in Flight Monument by Liz Wolf |
This school of fish was outside the Santa Fe Community Gallery.
Of course there still even older buildings still in Santa Fe.
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| Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi |
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| The palace of the Governor with Native vendors outside |
