The City Different

I was for most of my life a devoted and champion of New York. But I was back a while ago and could not understand living there. Manhattan streets are now so congested that one trip I took with an Uber cost me $45 to go less than 20 blocks. I used to ride my bike all over town, so I did not think about this when I lived there. A Congestion Pricing toll has just been imposed for cars entering Manhattan from 60th Street south. Whether it solves the problem remains to be seen.

A recent article in The New Mexican, our 175-year-old local newspaper, focused on the architectural ordinance that governs the style of buildings in what is called the historic district of Santa Fe. We do not live in the center of town but on the Old Santa Fe Trail, the original trade route that ran from Franklin, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. We have been told there are original ruts from the wagon trains on our property (haven’t found them yet) and therefore we are subject to some provisions of the historic ordinance.

From the aforementioned article: “Looking down from the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the rooftops of the stuccoed buildings below are noticeably flat. But the largely earth-tone structures in the city’s downtown area depict an array of architectural influences: Pueblo Revival, Territorial Revival, Mexican, Spanish and American”.

Santa Fe is a true melting pot of Native American (they were here first) Spanish (they took over in the 16th century) and Anglo American (annexed as a U.S. territory in 1848). It is home to Hispanics who trace their families back centuries as well as a major retirement and tourist spot. Last week within less than 24 hours I spotted License plates from 10 different states. Often there are cars with Mexican and several provinces from Canada as well. Not to mention ...

From the time New Mexico became a state (1912) there have been efforts to give Santa Fe its own character so it would not look like every city in the midwest.

According to an article in El Palacio, Spring of 2013, by Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, Edgar Lee Hewitt founder of what today is the School for Advanced Research became head of a group convened by the Mayor Arthur Seligman to, among other things, restore the identity of the capitol city of the new state. They decided this could be done by developing a signature style of architecture which they dubbed the “New-Old Santa Fe Style”. It combined modern building materials, plumbing and electricity with the local traditions of low adobe structures and flat roofs. Promoted by the region’s leading architect, John Gaw Meem (1894-1983), the Santa Fe style was codified by a city ordinance in 1957.

To first-time visitors the universal brown adobe color of its buildings defines the city. Affordable housing is necessary but even outside the designated historic area most apartment blocks have been at least painted in adobe tones. However, the most recently built multi-story blocks are gray, green or black and white making them even less consistent the character of Santa Fe. But last week The New Mexican published something even more jarring, someone is trying to get permission to build a red house!

The question raised in the recent newspaper article is whether the mandated Historic District Ordinance has unduly stifled architectural innovation. Well, of course, it has, but it achieved its goal, giving the city a character all its own.

Is innovation in architecture necessary to the vitality of cities? I would say that in the case of many it is, but not always and not everywhere. To have some elements of yesteryear that define the character of a location is, in my opinion, always a good thing. Respecting the amalgam of local traditions defined by artists and architects in 1912 in the Santa Fe style is in the city’s interest. It continues to attract tourists who often become residents, as we did. With the bustling city called Albuquerque just an hour down the road where innovation can thrive, hopefully Santa Fe can retain its claim to being “The City Different”.