It is displayed inside the Contemporary Arts Center’s Spector Ripps project space, currently surrounded by the Marietta Patricia Les Gallery. Sensual memories, is a small display of about twenty photographic prints. Each one features either an indoor or outdoor shot of Santa Fe’s house. But these homes are not the typical structures you might find in the historical record. For the most part, even if it contains milk, it is a new build or an old build integrated with new. Any of the classic vigas and latillas traditionally associated with Santa Fe architecture fuse with a contemporary, often minimalist overall aesthetic.
Santa Fe Modern: Contemporary Design in the High DesertCurated by Laura Carpenter in collaboration with writer Helen Thompson, it fits well in the Leis Gallery, because both work is, in part, a response to space and created with nature and the environment in mind.
“All the houses in modern santa fe largely with some references to the building styles of Pueblo ancestors,” says Thompson, whose new book of the same name (The Monacelli Press, 240 pages, $50) was published in November. “Some of these homes, as you review the book, you’ll see that they are built It transformed an original, smaller adobe structure and expanded the way the pueblo architecture expands, in response to local needs. Some are built on cliff sides just like the old cliff dwellings.”
One of these homes belonged to former SITE Santa Fe Phillips manager Erin Hoffman. Designed by architect William R. Buckley in the 1970s and renovated in 2014 by Suby Bowden & Associates, it includes the rocky deck built into one of its interior walls. It is an amazing and simple space where the natural pre-existing rock face on the interior stands out in an interesting way.
core values, renovated by Suby Bowden & Associate (2014), wooden siding, Courtesy of the Center for Contemporary Arts
All of the photos in the gallery, which were taken by Casey Dunn and featured in the book, ask us to reconsider what we think of when we think of Santa Fe’s architecture. This is not a book about the famous Spanish pueblo revival style, which tells us what we think of when we think of “Santa Fe style.” Houses appeared in modern santa fe, like the 2004 Marc Dubois home designed by Jane and Mickey Klein, are structures of stone, concrete, and glass. In the Klein residence, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows affords stunning views of the surrounding hills.
But nevertheless, the architects whose designs are included in Thompson’s book are aware of where they are building, a city with a cultural heritage stretching back to pre-European times. The structures of the Pueblo people certainly inspired the style of Santa Fe like the Spanish missions that spread through the area in the colonial era. These engineers put their modern designs along that continuum.
“For me, that was the big revelation when I started working on the book,” says Thompson. “There is this old connection, which is why I think modernity works so well in Santa Fe and feels like it belongs. It has been there the whole time.”
built to fit, renovations by Praxis Design Build (2010-2020), plaster and concrete, Courtesy of the Center for Contemporary Arts
modern santa fe It is Thomson’s last book in a trilogy of modern regional design. He follows modern merchandise (2016) and The Made of Texas, Modern Texas (2018), which was also published by The Monacelli Press.
“A common thread running through all of these books is that all the architecture I’m talking about is site specific,” she says. “The buildings were sourced from local materials and built in local styles with techniques going back as far back, in those specific locations, for centuries. This is the piece that ties these two books together.”
Not all homeowners whose homes have appeared have agreed to allow their names to be published, for privacy reasons, and the associated images are only identified by the individual architects or architecture firms that designed them.
However, one still wonders about the logistics involved in accessing the many exterior properties, as well as the interiors. Therefore, Thompson had over 30 years of experience writing about architecture and design to draw from.
“My first advice is, don’t do it during a pandemic, because that made everything more difficult,” says the author, who is originally from Texas and now resides in Santa Fe. “We had to postpone the last five or six homes we were shooting at until the quarantine was lifted, after which we were only able to enter a few homes one by one.”
Former food writer and editor at Texas MonthlyThomson’s articles on architecture and interior design appeared in Architectural DigestAnd Beautiful house, And Martha Stewart Living, among other publications. Along with this background came a large number of well-established contacts.
“I was a Texas resident, and you know, there are a lot of Texans in Santa Fe. I just pulled that thread and followed it. I also checked in with Laura at first. She’s been very instrumental in forming relationships for me.”
A wall passes through it, Lake / Flato Architects (2012), corrugated stainless steel, glass, plaster, Courtesy of the Center for Contemporary Arts
“Some architects aren’t from here,” says Carpenter, who wrote the book’s foreword. “Lake/Flato are Texas architects who have come out of a certain history in making architecture in the modern style of this place.”
Photographs in the gallery hang along three of the gallery’s four walls. A large video screen occupies the last wall, as every image reproduced in the book is leisurely scrolled, eliminating the need for Carpenter to make the difficult choice of what to include in the gallery and what to leave out. It’s all there, whether it’s installed as a print or scrolling on screen.
“One of the things I heard from people saying when they arrived was that it was good to see the scale a little bit with the pictures exploding,” says Daniel Maines, CEO of CCA. “It makes these homes feel a little more lively.”
Despite the emphasis on the reductive geometry and the angular nature of many of the structures, the overall feel of modern architecture in Santa Fe is an organic one. Many of the homes have been developed in such a way as to increase the experience of the place, and not just because they have large glass windows that offer great mountain views. It appears to be designed for minimal impact. The Klein house, for example, with a glass exterior that forms at least one corner of the building, allows for an almost continuous view when you’re standing outside because you’re looking via the home.
“Santa Fe is kind of a quintessential example of context correctness,” says Thompson. “What surrounds dwellings is why they look the way they do, why they behave the way they do, and why they are somehow sustainable.”
.