RESIDENTIAL ADOBE ARCHITECTURE AROUND SANTA FE

AND TAOS FROM 1900 TO THE PRESENT

by

HAMIYET OZEN, B.S. in Arch.

A THESIS

IN

ARCHITECTURE

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech Unlversity in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE

Approved

Chairperson of the Committee

Ac^épted

Dean^of the Graduate School

December, 1990

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Prof. WiUard B. Robinson for directing this project, and Prof.

John P. White and Dr. Joseph E. King, for their beneficial suggestions. I also would

like to thank Barbara Walker for editing and being supfx^rtive during the writing process of

this project.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

LISTOFHGURES iv

I. INTRODUCnON 1

II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND HISTORICAL USE OF ADOBE 8

Pueblo Indian Architecture 9

Spanish Colonial and Mexican Architecture 13

American Period Territorial and Railroad Style 16

Revival Style 23

III. HISTORIC PRESERVATION OF ADOBE BUa.DINGS 31

Preservation Problems 34

Rehabilitation and Preservation of Adobe Structures 37

Stabilization of Adobe 42

IV. ARCHITECTURAL AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

OF RESIDENTIAL ADOBE 45

Evolution of Residential Architecture 45

Popularity of Residential Adobe Architecture 59

V. PRODUCTION AND MANUFACTURING OF ADOBE 67

Production of Adobe Bricks 68

Production Methods of Adobe Bricks 73

VL CONCLUSION 78

ENDNOTES 83

BIBLIOGRAPHY 88

ui

LIST OF FIGURES

1. The map of the region 2

2. Taos Pueblo Multistoried North Plaza Building 11

3. The plan of Taos center 11

4. Palace of the Govemors which was built in 1610 and is the oldest

public building in the United States 14

5. Plan of Martinez Hacienda, Taos, N.M 17

6. The Ortiz House built in the late 1700's 21

7. The new type of plan with central hall and doubling of rooms is due

to influence of Greek Revival movement 22

8. Territorial style adobe building on Canyon Road, Santa Fe 24

9. Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, Administration and Research Building 27

10. Water, wind, animal, insect, and vegetation damage 35

11. ZuniPueblo 48

12. Theevolutíon of thepit house to the pueblo 50

13. Urban forms of historical pueblos 51

14. Hacienda plan 54

15. Roor plan of the traditional house from southem Turkey 55

16. A common L-shaped plan with a single-file of rooms with porch 57

17. This is a classical example of rural pitched roof adobes in Truchas, N.M 62

18. Carlos VierraHouse, SantaFe, was built in 1915 64

19. Van Dresser House, Santa Fe, was built in 1958 65

IV

CHAPTERI

INTRODUCTION

"The sun retums, but time never." Roman saying

The topic of this study will be Residentíal Adobe Architecture around Santa Fe and

Taos from 1900 to present (see figure 1). The thesis statement is that adobe has long been

an important building material and contínues to be in use today. Understanding the

technology and historic use of the material enables us to plan for better restoration and use

the material effectively in new constructíon.

The research for this study is divided into four main chapters with conclusions. The

first chapter deals with the architectural background and historic use of adobe material from

the Indian Pueblo period to the American Anglo period. The second chapter covers the

historic preservatíon of adobe buildings. This chapter gives ideas about preservation

problems and tíieir solutíons. The third chapter discusses the architectural and cultural

significance of residentíal adobe architecture. This chapter deals with the evolutíon and

popularity of residentíal adobe architecture during the 20th century. The plan of adobe

houses has many influences from other cultures such as Spanish, Muslim and other Middle

East and Mediterranean cultures. The productíon and manufacturing of adobe bricks in the

Santa Fe and Taos region is the contents of the last chapter.

From the time mankind first congregated in villages almost 10,000 years ago, unbaked

earth has been one of the principal building materials used on every contínent. The first

towns in the worid, in Ur, in Jericho, in Babylon, and in Nineveh, were built primarily of

sun-dried mud bricks. Furthermore, over one-third of the worid's population stiU lives in

earth houses. For example, far from being limited to ancient history, adobe has long been

a major building material for New Mexico.

1

C O L O R A D O

M E W M E X I C O

Figure 1. The map of the region.

3

The Indian, Spanish, and Anglo cultures have used adobe for home building. The

constructíon of New Mexico buildings has always revolved around adobe as a primary

construction material. Adobe as we know it originated in northem New Mexico, wiih the

term "adobe" deriving from the Spanish word "adobar," meaning "to knead." However,

some others state that the temi comes from Spanish and Moroccan roots meaning "to mix"

or "to puddle." Adobe reflects the influence of Spanish colonists from Mexico who

brought their own brick-making techniques with them when they settled in New Mexico at

the end of the 16th century, The Spanish word has been traced (via the Arabic at-tob) all

the way back to the Egyptian hieroglyphic "t'b," meaning "brick." So it is easy to see that

adobe is a vital and long-Iastíng building material.

This ancient material has a long history of widespread use by the Indian, Spanish, and

Anglo-American residents in and around Santa Fe and Taos. The development of adobe

over hundreds of years has formed the backbone of New Mexico's architectural heritage.

Both the indigenous and eclecric architectural landscape conrinue to disringuish this state

from the rest of the nation.

Regardless of periods and styles, untíl the present time, architecture in New Mexico

has commonly revolved around adobe as a primary building material. The state of New

Mexico has a building heritage older tíian any other part of the United States. Especially

impressive is the influence of ancient and historic regional styles that srill bear on much of

today's building. Indeed, adobe is a cultural heritage of New Mexico.

Man has been building permanent structures in New Mexico for more than 2000 years.

Pithouses with stone-lined pits and wood and earth roofs were built as early as 300 B.C.

Multi-unit buildings with stone and mud walls above ground date from 700 A.D. The

evolurion of the architecture in New Mexico can be broken down into four eras: Indian

(A.D. 700-1598), Spanish and Mexican Colonial (A.D. 1598-1848), Territorial (A.D.

1848-1912), andlater American (A.D. 1912-present).

4

Adobe has been used extensively around Santa Fe and Taos since primitive rimes. The

use of earth started with the Indian Pueblo people, and their culture fumished the basic

methods and materials for early Spanish Colonial architecture. Later these two cultures

were the basis of Anglo architecture in the region.

The use of adobe has been confined to the arid and semiarid regions of the earth. This

is due to the unique adaptability of adobe to such locales, the cost or scarcity of other

materials, and the comparative ease of adobe construction. Among the advantages of adobe

is its comparative simplicity of construcrion, which allows the use of unskiUed labor.

Adobe also ensures oprimal "thermal comfort," providing natural regulation between indoor

and outdoor temperatures, in sharp contrast to the heat-loss and overheating characteristic

of other materials and particularly of concrete. It is particularly suited to the needs of

Southwest do-it-yourself home building. Spectacular examples of both historical and

adobe revival houses are to be found in the Santa Fe and Taos areas.

The Adobe Revival style is a part of the historic preservation movement,an effort to

memorialize cultural backgrounds, architecture, and people from the past in tíie region.

Therefore, to have a conrinuance of the architectural heritage, one should preserve this rich

and unique architecture in an appropriate way. Indeed, the past could be a guide for

present and future generations. The residential architecture is an especially clear mirror for

the evaluation of society and its culture, its architecture and its history. It is possible to see

tíiese attributes around Santa Fe and Taos because of the three different cultures and their

accumularive mixture. This popular architectural heritage ought to be preserved to

remember the past John Gaw Meem, a New Mexican architect, had a statement about this

as follows;

In the worid that is increasingly tending to think alike and look like, it is important to cherish and preserve those elements in our culture that belong to us and help differentiate us. We are fortunate in tíiis region in that we

5 have a style of architecture that uniquely belongs to us and visually makes memories of our history and earth itself.l

The residenrial adobe architecture around Santa Fe and Taos (northern New Mexico)

will be the subject for this thesis. Houses here have one or the other of two different

origins: The first origin produces vemacular houses (village houses around the ciries),

which derive from Spain and Mexico. They have evolved naturally in a forthright manner

from diverse cultural sources and have become a rich and varied regional style, different

from adobe styles elsewhere in the worid. The second origin is the "Santa Fe Style,"

which is a self-conscious attempt to recapture a romantic image of old Southwest

architecture, both Spanish and Indian. The Santa Fe adobe style has eclipsed any other

styles in the area.

The region tributary to Santa Fe and Taos is one of the oldest and richest

archaeological territories in the Western Hemisphere, reaching back several thousand years.

However, for a long rime, it was isolated from other parts of the United States. The first

discovery of ancient ciries was made by Spanish Colonial people. Later, in 1610, Santa Fe

became a capital city for the Spanish Colonial people. But when the Santa Fe Trail opened

in 1821, it opened a door between ancienl history and other parts of tíie country. The city

became a gate between New Mexico and other parts of the United States Indeed, the

influence from tíie eastem and midwestem United States began to trickle slowly into the

region. New building materials and ideas were introduced. During the 20th century, both

Santa Fe and Taos with their disrincrive art and architecture became colonial art centers.

Many artists, writers, architects, and other people who had a strong interest in

Southwestem culture moved to the region for this reason. Their purpose was to discover

ancient history, culture, art and architecture. This movement gave birth to the Pueblo-

Spanish style of architecture (the Santa Fe style).

6

The history of architecture in New Mexico included the development of the Santa Fe

style in the early 1900's. The term refers to Pueblo Revival or Spanish Pueblo or Adobe

Revival. This revival architectural structure represents imitations of Indian Pueblo and

Spanish Colonial architecture, Spanish Pueblo, Pueblo Revival, and Territorial are all

modes or variarions of the same basic elements. This style was very different in origin,

intent, and appearance from the adobe houses of rural New Mexico. The key elements of

tíie style were (and still are) flat roofs, walls of adobe or at least of material thick enough to

suggest adobe, earth-colored stucco on tíie exterior, and white plaster on the interior. The

exterior woodwork was stained dark brown or painted white. In the interior the woodwork

was likewise stained, and incorporated a set of details including corbels, bancos,

fireplaces, and portals.

There are several reasons for this study. One of them is that adobe was an ancient

building material that today has became popular again in the region. Indeed, the Indian and

Spanish people are still building the adobe structure because it is part of their past, and

adobe is one of the materials that they have skill to use in their structures. What are some

reasons for other people to build adobe structures? Perhaps they are part of the romantic

regional movement to preserve adobe architectural heritage in the region.

The other reason is that adobe constmction offers a great saving in energy. Adobe

bricks are not baked and tíiey need littíe if any transportation, because they can be produced

on site or locally. Adobe buildings also require less heating and cooling. During the

production of adobe bricks, and during building tíie structure, one can use unskilled labor,

All these factors make adobe materials cheap and therefore economical to use.

Another reason is the wealth of cultural and historical stories behind the adobe houses

around Santa Fe and Taos, houses which have roots from ancient times adapted to modem

times. There should be some significance about them that people srill build these houses

and want to live in them. The plan of the house has connections with those of houses

7

which were built in Mesopotamia and Egypt, as well as in the Roman and Muslim worlds

(in the Middle East). This connection also wiU form a part of this study because there are

houses that are srill built in a manner similar to those built by Muslim people.

The last reason for this study is concem for historic preservation movements,

preservation problems, and preservation of the adobe structures. What we see today

around Santa Fe and Taos is part of the past. The preservation movement started at the

beginning of the 20th century when Santa Fe and Taos became colonial art centers.

Therefore, tíie Museum of New Mexico was the center for restoring, preserving, and

displaying the archaeology, ethnology, history, and art of the southwest in 1907. The

museum of New Mexico started an exemplary historic preservarion movement in the

region. With this historic preservatíon movement, the historic adobe structures have been

gradually restored.

This study will provide a historical background of adobe material with the present use

of material in tíie region. Throughout the study, one can see how this primitive material

gave form to a dream of modern man to build a stmcture and live in it. Adobe is the

material tíirough which the builder of tíie structure can give his feeling and spirit to the

building. In addition, every individual adobe structure is part of its environment and

nature.

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND HISTORICAL USE

OFADOBE

ANADOBEHOUSE A house bom of the brown earth and dying back to earth again, Without any desire to be more than earth and without any particular pain, Beside an acequia bringing water to com not yet tall.

Anonymous

Adobe architecture can be found on every contínent; not only in the form of historical

and archaeological remains but also in the infinite number of towns and villages where the

secular heritage, enriched by exchange between the most varied civilizations, is perpetuated

daily. Adobe has been widely used all over the worid from ancient times to the present.

Mesopotamians and Egyptíans, later Romans, and then Muslims built adobe structures in

Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Far Eastem peoples also build with adobe, including

the Indus civilizatíon, Buddhist monks, and Chinese emperors. During the Middle Ages,

adobe constructíon was practíced in North America by the Indians, in Mexico by the

Toltecs and the Aztecs. The Spanish conquerors of America brought with them European

techniques of adobe architecture and introduced tíiem into traditíons already established

there.

From world history, archaeological records survive from cities built entirely of earth;

the earliest city, Jericho, begun almost 10,000 years ago; Catal Huyuk in Turkey; Harappa

and Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan; Akhlet-Aton in Egypt; Cha-Cha in Peru; Babylon in Iraq;

Zuheros near Cordoba in Spain; and Khirokitia in Cyprus. There are tíiousands of adobe

buildings elsewhere in the world.l

8

9

This chapter will deal with the use of adobe material among Indian , Spanish and

Anglo-American people in northem New Mexico. The development of the adobe houses

will be surveyed step by step in Indian, Spanish and Anglo-American societies. Each

adobe house in the area took its form according to the cultural background of the builder

because every culture has added some distinctive elements to the house, either architectural

or cultural. These developments of residential architecture have given form to the adobe

structures to be found around Santa Fe and Taos today. This is a long and interesting

story; it is significant for us today in order to understand the adobe house. The cultural

background and traditions of society gave appropriate form to the residential architecture.

A house is a mirror of daily life, the way of living and doing things.

There are several reasons for the use of adobe as a building material in the region.

Some of them are economic; some are cultural and cHmatic. For example, stone and wood

are perfect and available building materials in New Mexico, but for a long time people

preferred to use adobe as the major building material. In some places people used adobe

material with stone and wood materials but this practice was not common, because they did

not have metal tools to trim stone and wood. Under all these circumstances adobe was the

perfect building material for unskiUed labor.

Puehlo Indian Architecture

Pueblo was the name given to a the permanent town by the first Spanish explorers in

the Southwest. "Pueblo" is the word for town in Spanish, a word conveying the sense of

both architecture and urban sophistication. The Pueblo Indian is the oldest among

important cultures in Southwestem architectural history. Pueblo Indian architecture's

differences from other forms of architecture consist of its large scale and its continuation

over a very long period of time. It has a sound approach to energy and conservadon and

integrates design and just plain beauty in folk-vemacular expression.

10

Throughout history, most of the pueblos have changed their visual state, but the

framework of a thousand-year building heritage is snll apparent. For instance, in a

conservative center such as Taos Pueblo, which remains much as it was when the Spanish

first saw it in the I6th century and is stiU prominent^ (see figures 2 and 3).

The history of Pueblo Indian architecture has a complex and often elusive historical

development. The major Puebloan cultural events and buildings are usually divided into

five phases. They are Pueblo I, 700 to 900; Pueblo II, 900 to 1050, Pueblo III, 1050 to

1300, Pueblo IV, 1300 to about 1700; and Pueblo V, 1700 to recent times.

Pueblo I and Pueblo n built their villages into small communities. The houses had flat

roofs and were built above ground of poles and mud. These were samll towns in which

"the rectílinear house units were built of stone masonry and sometimes multistoned."

Pueblo in is known as the Classic period, "the apogee of Anasazi culture, when large

numbers of people occupied towns of considerable size and social complexity flourished."

During Pueblo IV, some of the communities began moving toward "a cultural renaissance"

because of the first Spanish expedition in 1540. However, it was during this tíme that

most pueblos which have remained to the present were established. "Pueblo V culture has

been progressively affected by outside influences, first Spanish and then American. This

estimation has been given a very brief accounting in the introductíon to Early Architecmre

in New Mexico by historian Bainbridge Bunting."^

Prior to Spanish colonization and along the Rio Grande, houses were generally

massive, built of hand-packed earth. The Spaniards seem to have introduced the use of

simple stone rubble footings, outdoor baking ovens, and interior fireplaces, as well as the

technology of forming the same humble earth into brick-adobes-which were dried in the

sun and laid in mud mortar.

Roofs were made of peeled logs-or vigas-with smaller poles and brush or reeds laid over them, finished with a dense layer of packed earth. A gradual

11

«73

Figure 2. Taos Pueblo Mulristoried North Plaza Building. It carries the tradition of pueblo architecture into the present.

Figure 3. The plan of Taos center. Two massive terraced house blocks around a large plaza.

12 slope routed water from the flat roofs to drain spouts, or canales. Doors and windows were minimal and covered with, if anything, textiles or hides, and later, translucent selenite sheets and hand-adzed, pintled wooden doors.^

The historic Pueblo architecture frequently exhibits climatícally well-attuned siting and

construction considerations. Especially in earlier, less self-conscious styles, generated

within an economy of scarcity-the "vemacular"-there is almost always the reflectíon of an

enduring folk-wisdom. Today in some of the Indian pueblos, an increasing sensitivity to

tíie importance of tiieir built heritage has fostered encouraging, and sometíme innovative,

efforts toward adaprive reuse and historic preservarion of old structures.

The early adobe bricks were molded by hand. The sides and bases of the brick were

flat planes, but the upper surfaces were rounded. In New Mexico, the Indians had a way

of forming the mud into long, low bands which were called "puddled adobe." It is like

"pisé" or rammed earth constmcrion, "except that here the blends of mud from 15 to 20

inches high were laid without the aid of wooden forms. The technique was laborious and

slow, as each band had to dry thoroughly before the next one could be added." This

process could take several months per layer. Pisé is more difficult to manage than brick

and has never been used to tíie extent of the latter. A more typical example of puddle

constmctíon in tíie Rio Grande Valley is a group of rooms srill standing at Picurí Pueblo.5

In addirion to adobe puddling, two other materials were used by the Indians: stone and

jacal. Since Indians did not have metal tools for trimming stone, the ledges of rocks were

laid in a mortar of adobe. This construcrion weathered much better than regular adobe

work. Jacal construction involved "setring verrical members of wood in the ground at short

intervals and filling between them witíi mud." It was used by prehistoric Indians in Mexico

and other places.6 The basic planning and architecture of the Indian pueblo derive from

nature and the worid view of the Pueblo people. Indeed, "traditional Puebloans see

themselves and their society as part of a larger, comprehensive, sacred ecosystem."

13 As such, all things were historically cherished and conserved. Rain water was coUected or carefully diverted to irrigation. Every cloud and every season were cause to acknowledge and implore cooperation with the elements. Within tíie challenging natural ecology of tíie region, cooperation, intensificatíon and "miniaturizarion' are manifested in Pueblo Indian Architecture. This sensibility, and its built artifacts, fostered and sustained a people of deeper culture development, stability and productivity than anyone else in the area for hundreds of years.7

Spanish Colonial and Mexican Architecture

A considerable part of New Mexico's unique architecture was forged during the

Spanish Colonial and later Mexican periods (1598-1846), although virtually no unaltered

buildings exist from these years. The documentarion covers that of the fírst Spanish

settlement of San Gabriel, near present San Juan Pueblo in 1598, up through the Mexican

period of 1823 -1846. The best surviving examples of Spanish Colonial architecture are

found in mission churches in the Indian pueblos and mral Spanish towns, and haciendas

and smaller farmhouses of northem New Mexico.^

The city of Santa Fe was established as the colonial capital in 1610 by Pedro de

Peralta, who was sent to establish a permanent administrative and military capital of

Spanish settíement in New Mexico. The Spanish colonists chose Santa Fe because it was a

site enclosed on the north and east. This locatíon also offered irrigation and unoccupied

tíllable land. The colonists laid out a rectangular plaza as tíie center of their settíement,

faced on tíie north by the residence of the royal govemor (today, tíiis building is called the

Palace of tíie Governors), on the east by a church, and on the other sides by houses of

leading families.^ The Palace of Govemors is the oldest public building in the United

States (see figure 4).

The Spanish settlers of nortíiem New Mexico adopted the basic materials and forms of

architecture they found being used by the Indian people, entírely dependent upon materials

at hand.l^

14

Figure 4. Palace of the Governors which was built in 1610 and is the oldest public building in the United States. It has received many modificatíons and many partial reconstructions throughout history.

15

The technique of shaping mud into bricks was brought to New Mexico by \ht

Spaniards, who had leamed it from the Arabs. The technique of forming an adobe brick

was simple: "a stiff, doughlike mixture of eartíi and water was packed into a rectangular

frame of wood which was tíien lifted off, leaving the mud on the ground to dry." Later this

method was used extensively by the Indians.n

Early Spanish adobe style was much like tíiat of tíie Pueblo Indians: thick earth, or

occasionally stone walls, witíi flat earth roofs, laid over ceiling beams of peeled logs, or

vigas. Spanish people had introduced the technology of forming adobe-a mixture of clay,

sand, water and often straw or other plant fiber-into bricks, that were then sun dried. In

this period, features familar to Spanish Colonial people were also introduced, squared,

hand-adzed roof beams and some simple cabinetwork. There was some free-standing

fumiture and some hand carving, and tíiere were decorarive painrings which are usually

preserved for churches.12

Spanish Colonial buildings have very limited door and window openings because of

security and temperature con -ol. They were usually covered only by pintíed wooden

shutters. The floor plans were almost a conriguous sequence of rooms in single file, one

roomdeep. The width of the rooms isstandard at about 15 feet. Unfortunately, there are

no early Spanish houses diat have survived to serve as examples.

The Spanish towns were originally enclosed, fortified compounds; the attached houses

themselves defined a larger interior square and opened onto it. The outside wall did not

have any openings, and tíie entire town was used as large gates into the central courtyard.

This arrangement provided good defense from outside attackers. The torreon was also one

of the characteristíc features: "a usually round, two-story tower explicitíy for the purpose of

final defense."l3

A plaza originally refers to the entíre town as a consistent urban type; today, however,

we refer to the enclosed space of a house. For virtually 150 years, every one of the

16

colonial Spaniards lived in plaza type towns, or sometimes in Indian pueblos them.selves,

especially during the nomadic period of the Indians.

The hacienda is another kind of miniature plaza type large farmhouse nearer the

fields, and its plan foUowed closely on the town type, a string of neighboring rooms

defining a central enclosed space, but on a smaller scale. Four major haciendas are known

to have existed in the Taos Ranchitos area. The Antonio Severino Martinez house near

Taos, built in 1827, was equipped with a parapet provided with loopholes above the roof

level from which defenders might fíght off Indian attackersi"^ (see figure 5).

Smaller buildings, in the higher lands, had a little specialized room used for cooking,

eating, living, and sleeping. They shared functions within the same space. There was a

formal room called a sala which had special use and design.

American Period Territorial and Railroad Stvle

With the addition of New Mexico to the United States, the Territorial period begins in

1846. In Early Architecture in New Mexico, Bainbridge Bunting divides the Territorial

period into three major sections. These are Early (from territorial establishment to the end

of the Civil War) 1848-1865; Middle (the period after the war, when commerce and cultural

integration were flourishing) 1865-1880; and Late (after the arrival of the railroad and its

profusion of imported styles, until statehood) 1880-1912 Territorial Style.

Between 1821 and 1880, with Mexican independence from Spain and the opening of

the Santa Fe Trail, and when the railroad supplanted the Trail, the influence of the West and

American construction techniques started in the region. The Trail facilitated the foundation

of the Territorial style. New building materials such as glass and brick as well as various

technologies were introduced, allowing for technically improved architecture.

17

^ P L K TBKl

K L O O R PLA.1^

Figure 4. Plan of Martínez Hacienda, Taos, N.M.

18

The Territorial style is identífied as a belated extension of the Greek Revival manner,

which had grown on tíie eastem seaboard and was influenrial in New Mexico between

1820 and 1850. The most important buildings of the Early Territorial period were located

in the centers of Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and the villages along the Santa Fe Trail. The

characteristics of tíiis style were the pedimental lintel, used over doors and windows, and

the use of window glass, by tíien available. During tíiis period, tíie construcrion was

widely adapted to older, existíng single-file Spanish and Mexican period houses, probably

for many reasons. First, the larger size of windows and doors made better the confort of

tíie native architecture, as far as lightíng and ventilation were concemed. Secondly, "the

imagery was somehow appropriate. Pioneer images of culture and progress were

materialized in noe-Greek architecture." Thirdly, tíie new style could be beautíful, From

today's point of view, it would have to be considered a very winning formulatíon.15

There are tíiree specific contributíons to tíie development of Territorial architecture;

window glass, milled lumber, and brick. Another key development in Territorial

architecture was tíie establishment of sawmills in many areas, originally to service army

needs. Therefore, lumber became commercially available, but was sparingly used up until

the late 19th century. The use of milled wood was in the period involving door and

window frames and cases, detailed porch woodwork, and framing for pitched roofs.

The picthed-roof form was introduced during this period. It had been used on pre-

Civil War buildings in the rural mountain areas where wood was plenriful. The shape of

tíie roof depends both on elevatíon of the areas because of climate and on wood material.

Thus in lower elevatíons flat roofs of earth constmctíon are stíll used. On tíie other hand,

in northem higher-elevation areas, hipped and gabled roofs gained widespread popularity.

This type of roof provided significant insulatíng and waterproofing improvements over

earher construction. "Pitched roofs were framed with milled lumber and surfaced with

sawn boards in a lapped pattem, like board and batten or with split shingles," In some

19

places, wood-frame pitched roofs were often added directly over existing flat earth roofs.

The purpose of adding this roof was to shed water, which quickly compromises any form

of earth construction. In the region, the pitched roof was well adapted and was a

characteristic feature of an established sub-regional style. The old plaza of Chimayo is an

excellent example of "attached buildings in this genre, containing, a beautiful array of folk-

territorialdetaiI."16

Doorways and windows were other features that witnessed substantial changes during

the Territorial period, both in their detail executíon and in their contriburion to overall

architectural intent. The earlier doors and windows had been minimal. They were rather

random holes in walls-perhaps with a hand-adzed door-however, they were more likely

covered with textiles or hides. They did not become prominent elements of a composed

facade. There was a symmetry, and this was reflected in new developments in floor plans,

carrying the focus of a central door into a central hall. Interior and exterior window and

door casings were quite simple, distínguished more by their contrasring paint tíian by

classic "correctness."^7

The Portal or Porch was used in this period, but Pueblo Indian and Spanish

architecture had already produced a colonnaded portal or porch, although there were some

disrinctions between the earlier columns and those of the Territorial period. Before, the

columns of tíie porch had been executed with round logs and usually some form of capital

detail. During tíie Territorial period, columns were square cut, often with "chamfered

comers, and applied moldings, completed the effect of a simple, usually vaguely Doric,

capital."l8

Brick kilns were introduced during tíie early years of the Territorial period in Las

Vegas, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque. This was a third key element of tíie style because of

"the denriled brick copings capping the parapet wall. Flat stones were placed on the top of

20

the wall to reduce erosion. Erosion at the top of tíie adobe walls had been a continumg

problem for adobe architecture"!^ (see figure 6).

Brick was somerimes used as constmction material in the entire walls, and though

more permanent, it was considered more costíy than adobe, However, most buildings

continued to be built with adobe walls, if not roofs. There was a transition in many

buildings' appearance from mud plaster to the walls painted to look like brand-new red

brick. The walls of new buildings were built with adobe in tíie Territorial style because the

adobe walls were an important part of architecture.

Compared to the Colonial period, this era had a great variety of building types, even if

not of constmction metíiods. The residentíal building contínued to dominate constmction

actívity. In additíon, "a new type of floor plan was introduced in the Territorial

period,witcentral hall, and a generally more complex sparial order than earlier regional

models." The "one-dimensional" row of rooms becomes a two-dimensional network.

Speaking of a variety of configurarions, "L,T,U or completely enclosed placita, the

traditional plan had been seldom more than one room deep." This plan was symmetrical

based on a central hall or room^O (see fígure 7).

The interiors of Territorial buildings were more elaborated than tíiose of previous

types. They were better illuminated and better ventilated, and more articulated-and

perhaps functional-in zone. With the new technology and materials, the ceiling beams

were square, and a wood floor replaced the earth. Among numerous advantages were

finished cabinetwork and door and window casing and shutter. The regional architecture

focuses largely on adobe style, which forms the backbone of New Mexico's architecture.

However, there were some other buildings in the state which were similar in style and

technology to those found in other eastem or midwestem towns, including a large number

of eclectic and revival movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these had been

idenrified as the Railroad Style.

* ^

21

Figure 6. The Oniz Houses built in the late 1700's. It has been altered witíi Territorial features in Santa Fe.

22

(S-O .3 0 21'-10»

W L U L - ^

^ ^ ^ 1

^^W

\ x ^\VA;^VVV;:^

I I 11 n i 11111 j í

I tc?.t^ jz'-i]^ 12'-^' J ^|-7*|^ U'-ll' j2'-t\ K?'-4' j

Figure 7. The new type of plan with central hall and doubling of rooms is due to influence of Greek Revival movement.

23

The railroad arrived in New Mexico-Las Vegas in 1879 and Santa Fe and

Albuquerque in 1880. Therefore, it was an economical high-speed bridge to eastern goods

and ideas. Things which were fashionable in the East later became fashionable in New

Mexico. New people, materials, technology, and stylistic directions came to the region,

and they made an unforgettable impact. The earlier-f>eriod Mexican plaza adapted quite

neatly to become a more American town square.

During this period, historic buildings that had regional characteristics were altered to

incorporate elements borrowed from "non-indigenous or non-period sources." The

historical architecture included a Spanish Colonial shell, Territorial Greek Revival windows

and doors, some Victorian interior trim, and a Spanish Colonial Revival colonnaded

portal. This was a part of New Mexico's architectural history tíiat revealed a freely adapted

use of style and technology (see figure 8).

Many architectural styles arrived with the railroad, including Gothic and Romanesque

Revivals, Italianate Bracketted Victorian, Queen Anne, Second Empire Mansard, Greek

and Georgian Revivals, Columbian Exposition Neoclassic, the gambrel-roof Dutch

Hudson River Style, the Prairie Style, and American Craftsman and, from the West,

Mission and Spanish Baroque Revival and tíie Bungalow.21 Form these architecture

styles, adobe stmctures adapted more features. The variety of building types offered

appropriate new design ideas to alter adobe stmctures.

Revival Stvle

From the beginning of the 20th century up to the present day, the revival of regional

styles has had a strong impact on Southwestem architecture. The sources for the

Southwest Revival style were basically Peublo-Spanish, Spanish Mission, and Territorial.

24

II I WELWí lii tnmfni CiiiHl

^,.^;<*v*«i'l*''^*^^*^; ; . j * ic i i ín** í * ' *« ' ' ^ ' '

-.7 - T-.-y : --.

FigureS. Territorial style adobe building on Canyon Road, Santa Fe. Neo-Classical columns and portal, exterior woodwork painted white, and bumt bricks on top of adobe walls.

25

Both Pueblo-Spanish and Territorial have conrinued in popular use to the present day.

Some of the Revival style buildings reveal an appreciarion of the tme historic artifact.

Pueblo Revivd (Santa Fe Style) can also be termed "Adobe Revival" because the basic

theme of this style was to keep the popularity of adobe architecture from the past in a

regionalist manner.

The popularity of Pueblo and Spanish styles of building has continued into the 20th

century, and they are stíll in pracrice today where "folk," do-it-yourself architecture

survives. In the early part of this century, the present day Pueblo Revival style or Adobe

Revival-style was used. This style became widely popular, chiefly among the non-native

Anglo people looking for something in demonstratively "regional" taste. The distinction

between a traditional Pueblo-Spanish building and a Pueblo Revival building depends on

the point of view and cultural background of the one who is doing the building, and to a

degree, on the complexity, amenity, and modemity of the plan.

Pueblo Revival style is also called the Santa Fe style. Defined in 1904-1921, the

purpose of the style was twofold:[I] To awaken local interest in the preservation of the Old

Santa Fe and tíie development of tíie New along the lines most appropriate to this country.

[2] To advertise the unique and unrivalled possibilities of the city as "THE TOURIST

CENTER OF THE SOUTHWEST."22

In many villages and Indian pueblos and even with small owner-built homes in larger

communities such as Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque, the ancient Pueblo-Spanish-style

adobe constmction continued to be the popular building method all through the 19th

century and on into the 20tíî century. Some of these Adobe Revival-style buildings were

not built with real adobe material, but they were imitative of adobe architecture from the

past with their facades and massive pueblo appearances. Parallel with this surviving

building tradition, a true revival of the style in New Mexico began on the University of

New Mexico campus in Albuquerque with the constmction of the Central Heating Plant

26

(1905-06). This was followed by Kwataka and Hokona Halls (1907). Hodgin Hall was

remodeled from its original 1890 Richardsonian Romanesque manner into a Pueblo-

Spanish style building in 1908-09. Later, the restoration of the Palace of the Governors in

Santa Fe helped to spur onward the popularity of tíie revival. Between 1909 and 1945 the

style was the most prominent for all buildings in Santa Fe, from private houses to

churches, from the Fine Arts Museum (1917) to the La Fonda Hotel (1920), the Laboratory

of Anthropology (1931) (see figure 9), the New Mexico School for the Deaf (1935) and the

National Park Service Headquarters (1939), and also the Sagebmsh Inn at Taos (1927).

Most of Santa Fe's finest Pueblo-Spanish-style buildings date from the period between

Worid Wars I and II.

The architectural characteristícs of this style were derived from earlier antecedents,

which featured massive adobe brick walls with projecting vigas and rounded parapets,

interpenetrated v/itíi roof drains (canales), exposed wood lintels over inset doors and

windows, and portals with round columns and corbels. Pueblo-Spanish Revival has a

massive, archless, irregular look with the set-back upper stories and flat roofs of the

traditional Indian community house. Taos Pueblo was obviously a major inspirational

source. Also, squat towers derived from early Franciscan mission churches are

occasionally scen on larger public and commercial buildings.

Whetíier built of adobe brick or concrete block, in all cases the appearance of the

stmcture must be tíiat of an adobe brick building. Stucco with a smootíi but uneven hand-

applied look is universal. Facades and building comers often have rounded stuccoed

buttresses, again for visual effect only. High, thick round-topped stuccoed walls with

emphasized wooden gates enclose rear, side, or front patios. This revival continues today,

but changing economic realities within the constmctíon industry have had a strong effect on

the buildings completed since the end of World War II.

27

Figure 9. Laboratory of Antropology, Santa Fe, Administratíon and Research Building.

28

Rising labor and material costs resulted in buildings that are generally flatter, thinner,

and without the variety or hand-worked detailing. The buildings must be put up faster, and

in proportion, at less cost. Wood studs have replaced adobe brick for most homes because

adobe had gone from "dirt-cheap" to very expensive. The resultant walls are flatter and

smoother with an obviously fake batter at tíie parapet and at the comers. The viga ends

which project through tíie wall are frequently simple log stubs attached to the outer surface

only.23

The second of tíie regional revival styles was the Mission Revival. "Typical features

of the style include large flat walls with isolated, complex detail, arches, towers and

symmetrically curvilinear gables as monumental fronrispieces. Exterior walls are often

painted white or a bright pastel color, unlike the earth-tones of the Spanish-Pueblo and

Territorial Revivals."^'^

There was a lack of sculptural ornamentation, which distinguishes the Mission Revival

from buildings of tíie later Spanish Colonial Revival style. Many Mission Revival features

were also characteristíc of tíie Spanish Colonial Revival: red-tíled roofs of low pich, semi-

circular arches, and balconies. But cast and carved omament, many tímes with

considerable elaboration. was common to this Revival style, while the arches were not so

nearly universal. Doorways were enriched with side pilasters or columns. Balconies had

wood or wrought iron railings, and windows were commonly covered with grills of tumed

wood spindles or wrought iron. The plans of houses took many forms and involved either

one or two stories. Many tímes, it is difficult to classify certain buildings within one of the

two styles. However, many small one-story houses were classified as Spanish Colonial

because of the later date of their constmctíon.25

The third of the major regional-type Revival styles is Territorial. The Territorial

Revival style was used for major public buildings-the present State Capital Complex is the

major expression-as well as for commercial and residential constmctíon, The Santa Fe

29

Territorial Revival style made fuU use of all of its earlier components except one, the metal

pitched roof.

In this style, the Greek Revival details in tíie wood window and door frames with

pediment lintels were repeated. The brick parapet coping and the square porml post remain

characteristíc. Stuccoed walls were universal on the residenrial stmctures but rarely with

the adobe brick. There was one new feature: the flat roof was allowed to overhang the

walls and to have a wood facia without any parapet. This feature was used almost

exclusively in residentíal constmction. Perhaps the most important pre-World War II

building in Santa Fe was the Supreme Court building designed by Gordon F Street and

built in 1936-3.26 john Gaw Meem was a master of Pueblo Revival, many of his later

instítutional and residentíal projects were in tíie manner of Territorial Revival.

In conclusion, tíiere are in the Southwest three fundamental cultural traditions from the

historical and sociological standpoints :

[1]. The culture shared by Pueblo societíes, despite their difference, many aspects of which have been adopted by the Navajo and Apache over the course of almost six centuries of interactíon tíirough acculturatíon. [2]. The old-family Hispanic culture, rooted in the age of discovery of the "New World," its conquest and colonization in the name of God and King, coinciding with the Counter-Reformation and the revival of Scholastícism in sixteenth-century Iberia. [3]. Northwest European, predominantly English, German. and French, after immigratíon to the Atlantíc coastal regions of northem North America at the tíme of tíie westem European "Enlightenment" with all its implications for new ways of thinking theologically, philosophically, and scientifically and forreordering political and socioeconomic institutions.27

From the ancient tradition up to the present, there has been an important architectural

heritage in northem New Mexico. Indian people built their shelters with adobe material the

"puddle adobe" way, by hand. Adobe was the material to which they could give form

without using any other tools; they did not have metal tools to trim stone or wood. Adobe

was also a material which needed minimal heating and cooling. After the 16th century,

Spanish people came to the region. They took this building tradition from the Indian

30

people but they brought with them new adobe brick techniques. They leamed these

techniques from the Moorish people and carried them all the way from Spain with them.

These techniques resulted in the present adobe brick. Adobe was a mixture of water, sand,

clay, and straw or any other kind of organic materials. This mixture was put into a

rectangular frame of wood and was left on the ground to dry. Later, Anglo people came to

the region in 1848 and tíiey took this same traditíon from the Indian and Spanish peoples.

But with the American period, tíiere were some new materials available in tíie region such

as glass and brick. Despite tíiese developments, adobe was stiU the common building

material. This was the material regionally available, and it was cheap for poor New

Mexican people. Therefore, adobe is one of the most ancient building materials compared

with others in the region. Adobe as a building material is not only economical, but is also

suitable for the climatic conditíons. And in keeping with the building d-aditions from the

past, it is a cultural inheritance from ancient times.

CHAPTER III

HISTORIC PRESERVATION OF ADOBE BUILDINGS

"[Buildings] belong partly to those who built them and partly to those generations of mankind who will foUow them."

John Ruskin

Today, adobe building methods used in northem New Mexico during the 16th century

are srill employed. Adobe bricks shrink and swell constantly with their changing water

content; l^cause they are not fired in a kiln-as are clay bricks-they remain unstable. Also,

their strength fluctuates with their water content. Therefore, whether built in the 16th

century or in the 20th century, adobe buildings share common problems of maintenance

and deterioration. When the techniques and methods used for restoratíon and repairs are as

similar as possible to the techniques used in the original consuuction, preserving and

rehabilitatíng a deteriorated adobe building is most successful. This chapter discusses the

causes of adobe deterioratíon, the preservatíon problems, and the rehabilitation and

preservation and stabilization of adobe stmctures.

Earth, used as sun-dried adobe bricks, is the oldest known building material. More

than half of the world's population lives in some form of earth building today. From the

tíme tíiat the first earth building was built, tíie preservation and maintenance of such

buildings has been a matter of concem botíi for the builders and for the people who live in

them.

Adobe consists of three elements: caliche or clay; sand or fine gravel for compressive

strength; and straw, horsehair, grasses, pine needles, or other organic fíber, primarily as an

agent to prevent cracking during curing. The proportíons of these elements are generally

about 20-30% clay, 50-60% sand or fíne gravel, 3% straw or fiber, and 17% waier.l

31

32

Maintenance of the original proportion is essential for the preservatíon of stmctures built of

adobe.

The residents of Santa Fe watched the erosion of the traditíonal environment and the

loss of the distínctive character of Santa Fe. They could see that another generarion of

progress of the kind the community had just experienced would totally eliminate the Santa

Fe tíiat they cared for. They also realized that if the city became "midwestemized," it

would lose its attracrion for tourists, a significant factor, for the tourist attracrion had

become an important part of the city's economy. What could be done to save what was

left, and who would do it?

For a long tíme Santa Fe and Taos were isolated from other states. However, later

Santa Fe had access of a sort to tíie outside worid over tíie Santa Fe Trail, a trader's trace

mnning from Westpost on the western border of Missouri to the Rio Grande, over a

division of the Camino Real through Albuquerque to EI Paso, thence to Chihuahua and

several westward-bearing trails to the Pacific Coast.2 Therefore, this isolated ancient

culture attracted both Spanish and later American people. Indeed, "the quality of the

prehistoric art and architecture demonstrates these early people's fascinatíon with their

powerful milieu; they found civilization older than that of Europe, and there is the sense of

an inimitable past and an archaic past, still alive and mling tíie ether."3

At tíie beginning of the 20tíi century, many people became interested in tíiis prehistoric

art and architecture. Carlos Vierra was one of them. Vierra, a founder of the Santa Fe

colony, emerged to preserve exisring old style buildings and to urge that new buildings

reflect the historic mode. Carlos Vierra remained a resident of Santa Fe for the rest of his

life. He painted landscape and historical subjects; he was fascinated with adobe-stmcture

mission churches and public buildings. He came to be called the "scenic architect," and

was a passionate advocate for preserving and restoring old- style adobe buildings. Vierra

also develop the theme "City Different."^

33

Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett, a narive of lllinois, had come to live in Santa Fe before 19(X),

the first person to conduct excavarions scienrifically in the Southwest. Hewett was also the

prime mover in 1907 in founding the School of American Archaeology, whose acrivities

later made Santa Fe the center for archaeological invesrigation all over the North American

conrinent. Under this school, the Palace of Governors was remodeled to serve as its

headquarters as well as to function as a museum.

Among the other pioneering people who first moved toward preservation of the city

were Sylvanus Morley (an archaeologist), Jesse Nusbaum (an archaeologist), and Frank

Springer (a lawyer). Others included Paul A. F. Walter (the perennial treasure of the

Southwest), and Kenneth and Kate Chapman (Kenneth was an authority on Indian pottery,

and Kate was the first person who specialized in the restoration of old adobe houses), as

well as Dan Kelly, a merchant; Carlos Vierra, tíie painter-photographer who had

systematically photographed the pueblos; I. H. Rapp, an architect; and Dr. Frank Mare of

Sunmount.^

The first preservation movement was undertaken by tíiese leaders and later some new

people decided to preserve tíie colonial churches in the region because by 1920, almost all

of the coloniai churches had deteriorated dangerously. In addirion, a group of Denver

citizens who visited New Mexico tried to help in the preservarion of these churches. The

leader of these people was Miss Anne Evans, who raised funds with John Gaw Meem's

assistance. Among other people in this group were Mary Ausrin, Dan Kelly, Paul Walter,

Dr. Frank Mare, and Carlos Vierra. Together they set up an infonnal organizarion called

"the Committee for the Preservarion and Restoration of New Mexico Mission Churches,

the CPRNMMC."6 The committee faced a formidable task indeed.

34

Preservarion Problems

The problem foremost in the concem of preservationists of adobe stmctures is the

erosion of mud walls from rainfall. Another big problem is the deterioration of material by

water other than rainfall. There are several other common sources of deteriorarion.

Structural Damage: There are many common stmctural problems in adobe buildings,

and it is easy to see the result of these problems but not their causes. Several of these

problems originated with design or constmction, insufficient foundation, weak or

inadequate materials, or the effect of wind, water, snow, and earthquakes. The sign of

structural problems in adobe buildings is cracks in walls, foundations, and roofs. In many

cases, cracks are readily visible in adobe, but tíieir causes may be difficult to diagnose.

Water-Related Problems: There are two sources of water problems, rainwater and

ground water. Successful stabilizatíon, restoration, and the ulrimate survival of an adobe

building depend on how effecrively a stmcture sheds water. The erosion action of

rainwater and the following drying out of adobe roofs and parapet walls can cause furrows,

cracks, deep fissures, and pitted surfaces to form in the wall surface. Rain-soaked adobe

loses its coherent strength and sloughs off, forming rounded comers and parapets.

Rainwater can destroy adobe walls and roofs, causing their conrinued deteriorarion and

eventual collapse.

Ground water may be present during the spring due to a high water table, improper

drainage, seasonal water fluctuarions, excessive plant watering, or changes in grade on

either side of the wall. Ground water causes the adobe to erode, bulge, and cove. When

water rises from the ground into the wall, the bond between the clay particles in the adobe

brick breaks down. In addirion, the adobe is damaged by dissolved minerals and salts

brought up from the soil by water^ (see fígure 10).

35

HAIN KRf)SION

WINO í-.kOSIOS

GROUSD WATER RISINODAMP

Figure 10. Water, wind, animal, insect, and vegetation damage of the adobe wall

36

The most common deteriorarion sources of the adobe stmcture follow;

[ 1 ] Basal erosion is a kind of coving at the base of a wall and usually occurs in the

direction of the outside or exterior of the building. Widespread erosion is a serious

problem which has to be addressed to guarantee preservation of the adobe wall. The

causes of basal erosion are tunneling by rodents, ground water, direct splash, and soluble

salts.

[2] Surface erosion is uniform over tíie entire wall area; however, it is generally

cosmetic in concern and much less serious than basal erosion, Surface erosion is a

significant factor in buildings requiring preservation in perpetuity and it needs to be

corrected, but for the individual homeowner it is much less serious. The sources of surface

erosion are wind-driven abrasives, insects, mnning water, and internal moisture.

[3] Cracks and bulges in walls are usually noriced first and cause the greatest concem.

A crack can be vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. The two porrions of the wall on each side

of the crack may be moving apart (a tension crack), moving together, or sliding against

each other. The type of the crack should be determined, as well as whether the crack is

"acrive," or currently moving, because an inacrive crack is much less serious than an acrive

one. The causes of cracks and bulges are external loading, internal wall moisture (from

above or below), increased compressive loading, and earth movement.

[4] Failure of protecrive surfaces treatment is distressing, but rarely more than that.

The rate of erosion of an unprotected horizontal surface in the Southwest is approximately

one inch in 20 years. Mud, lime plaster, and cement stucco have been traditional

producrive coarings during this century. They provide protection against surface erosion.

The only problem arises when these coarings conceal deterioration which is occurring

behind the coating. The causes of failure of protecrive surfaces are wind-driven abrasives,

running water, insects, and internal moisture.

37

[5] Upper-wall displacement: the problem of a leaning wall should be considered

extremely serious if the center third falls outside of the wall mass at ground line, a fact

which can be determined by dropping a plumb line from the top of the wall. Wall collapse

is the ultimate deteriorarion effect of upper-wall displacement; however, it actually seldom

occurs and not before one or more of ihe other factors of decay has had a destmctive effect.

The causes of upper-wall displacement are wall moisture, external loading, and earth

movement.^

The water-related processes are wet-dry cycles, freeze-thaw cycles, capiUary rise, and

condensation. When a wall is affected by water, this effect is normally not constant, which

leads to a wet-dry cycle. Often tíie lengtíi of tíiis cycle can be important, Basal erosion and

surface erosion are related to tíie presence of soluble salts. These salts are usually either in

the ground or in the clay within the adobe bricks themselves. In a wet wall, the salts move

to the surface, where the water dries; the salts left from the water expand as they crystaUize,

destroying the surface of the wall.

Rehahilitation and Preservatíon of Adobe Stmctures

The Secretary ofthe Interior's Standardsfor Historic Preservation Projects has

standard defínitíons for "preservation," "restoration," "rehabilitation," and "stabilization."

Preservation. Means the act or process of applying measures designed to affect the physical condition of a property by defending or guarding it from deterioration, loss, or attack, or to cover or shield the property from danger or injury. For buildings and stmctures, such treatment is generally of a temporary nature and anticipates future historic preservation treatment; in the case of archaeological sites, the protective measure may be temporary or permanent. Rehabilitation. Means the act or process of retuming a property to a state ot utiUty through repair or alteration that makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions or features of the property that are significant to its historical, architectural, and cultural values. Restoration, Means the act or process of accurately recovenng the form and details of property and its setting as it appeared at a particular period of time

38 by means of the removal of later work or by the replacement of missing earlier work.^

The purpose of rehabilitation is to take a deteriorated or under-used resource and turn it

into a viable, working propeny for the community. Under rehabilitation or under any

preservation treatment there are four rules. The first rule is this: "It is better to preserve

than to repair, it is better to repair than restore; and it is better to restore than to reconstruct."

Usually, as the level of combination drops, the treatment, preservation, repair, restoration,

or reconstruction becomes more drastic. The second rule is this: "If there is a choice, do it

the way it was done originally. Repair should be undertaken with the same material or

with a material of compatible quality."!" The third rule is this: it is better to do work in a

way that could be preserved. When a mistake is made, it cannot be reversed. Therefore,

what can be done? Rule number four is to save everything. Concerning the last rule, the

weakest material is going to deteriorate first. Therefore, a soft material cannot be preserved

with a harder one. A typical example is the use of hard mortars with adobes, because

continued wearing away of the softer mud leaves a lattice of mortar behind.l 1

The Secretary ofthe Interior's Standards is a guide for certified rehabilitations, and

inherent in the federal grant process are general standards with which all preservationists

should be familiar:

[1] Every reasonable effort shall be made to provide a compatible use for a property which requires minimal alteration of the building, structure, or site and its environment, or to use a property for its originally intended purpose. [2] The distinguishing original qualities or character of a buildmg, structure, or site and its environment shall not be destroyed. The removal or alteration of any historic material or distinctive architectural features should be avoided when possible. , ^ c [31 All buildings, structures, and sites shall be recognized as products ot their own time. Altera ons that have no historical basis and which seek to create an earlier appearance shall be discouraged. [4] Changes which may have taken place in the course of time are evidence of the history and development of a building, structure, or site and its environment. These changes may have acquired significance in their own right, and this significance shall be recognized and respected. [5 Distinctive stylistic features or examples of skiUed craftsmanship which characterize a building, structure, or site shall be treated with sensitivity.

39 [6] Deteriorated architectural features shall be repaired rather than replaced, wherever possible. In the event replacement is necessary, the new material should match the material being replaced in compositíon, design, color, texture, and other visual qualitíes. Repair or replacement of missing architectural features should be based on accurate duplicatíons of features, substantiated by historic, physical, or pictorial evidence rather than on conjectural designs or the availability of different architectural elements from other buildings or stmctures. [7] The surface cleaning of stmctures shall be undertaken with the gentíest means possible. Sandblastíng and other cleaning methods that wiU damage the historic building materials shall not be undertaken. [8] Every reasonable effort shall be made to protect and preserve archaeological resources affected by, or adjacent to, any project. [9] Contemporary design for alteratíons and additíons to existing properties shall not be discouraged when such alteratíons and additions do not destroy significant historical, architectural or cultural material, and such design is compatible with tíie size, scale, color, material, and character of the property, neighborhood or environment. [10] Wherever possible, new additíons or alterations to stmctures shall be done in such a manner that if such additions or alteratíons were to be removed in the future, the essentíal form and integrity of tíie stmcture would be unimpaired.l2

Standards [9] and [10] apply particularly torehabilitatíon, recommending that new

additíons should be compatible but different. New addirions and alterations would

therefore leave unimpaired the significance and integrity of the historical building.

The signifícance of a building can be determined from at least three perspecrives.

Chronology is perhaps the most objective measurement, because the older the element, the

more significant, it is. Artisric value is related to the work of a master or skilled artist or

simply by rare examples of elements that were once very common. The last one, historic

associarion, can be known through research. The integrity of a building related to the

amount of deteriorarion present is classified as follows: preserved, in need of repair, in

need of restoration, in need of stmctural stabilization, and element missing in need of

reconstmction.

The traditional approach to protection of adobe walls from water has been to coat them

with some type of "waterproofing" material. These materials could be of different types

ranging from a thin paint coating to a thick portland cement stucco, However, ground

40

water can be harmful despite protective coating because most historic adobe stmctures do

not have adequate waterproof foundations.

A good tight roof with ample positive drainage will do more than anything else to

preserve an adobe structure. This wiU certainly assist in the decrease of one of the most

severe deleterious effects of water. Many historical stmctures have either inadequate roofs

or no roofs at all. The structures without roofs should be preserved rather than restored.

However, if tíie exisring stmcture has a roof or originally had a roof, the matter of repainng

and reconstmctíng the original roof should be considered. Another approach taken is to

provide protection by constmcrion of a separate high roof over tíie stmcture.

The ground water and cumulatíve rainwater on tíie base of tíie adobe walls can be

decreased by providing drainage around the wall. The digging of trenches around the

adobe walls and filling them with gravel of sufficient size to prevent the rise of capillary

water could provide the necessary drainage.

The vertícal surfaces of adobe walls that exhibit erosion from such elements as water

or sand-laden wind can be protected with surface coaring or surface impregnation materials

or by replacing eroded adobe with new adobe. The replacement of eroded adobe with new

adobe is usually sufficient to preserve tíie adobe stmcture.

There are four major ways tíiat have been used to protect tíie vertical surface of adobe

stmctures: [1] stuccoes and plasters; [2] surface coatings; [3] suri ace impregnation

materials; [4] consolidatíon materials. Cement stuccoes have been used to protect vertical

surfaces of adobe walls ft-om rainfall. This is an economical better way for adobe

preservation because, in many cases, stuccoes have not been effectíve in the protection of

adobe from water. The stucco on the adobe wall soaks up water, and this is usually not

visually apparent on the surface until a portion of the wall collapses. -

Different methods developed to upgrade the function of stuccoes include the following:

[1] applying stucco to wire mesh nailed to adobe walls; [2] formulating stuccoes which

41

are lean in cement and stuccoes with mixed proportions of cement; [3] applying the stucco

to dampened adobe surfaces; and [4] the use of a primer coat prior to applicatíon of the

stucco. However, soil-cement mortars seem to be more effectíve than stuccoes.l'^ Lime

plasters have been applied successfuUy to adobe walls. If the plaster does not have any

cracks, moisture does not accumulate at the plaster-adobe interface.l^

Surface coarings on adobe walls provide temporary protecrion and also improve the

appearance of the walls. Different types of surface coarings have been used: oil base,

resin-base and emulsion paints; portíand cement washes and whitewashes; coatíngs of plant

extracts; and coatíngs of fresh blood.

Surface impregnatíon materials are materials that affect the surface layers of adobe

walls to a finite deptíi and botíi "waterproof' and consolidate these layers. Usually they are

organic-silicates or organic monomers which are polymerized in situ.

Consolidatíon materials are tíiose materials which can be intmded into the mass of

adobe stmctures to fiU pores, voids, and cracks in the soil matrix. Based on

comprehensive study over 20 years, tíiat "no single chemical or combination of chemicals

have been found acceptable, effective, or economical as a major soil stabilizer."16

The successful preservarion of most historical adobe stmctures depends on effectively

protecring the stmctures from natural hazards, especially water. The cause of deterioration

at adobe stmctures should be very carefully investígated, because only after this phase is

completed should preservatíon methods and materials be selected. The preservation of

adobe material is a unique problem; therefore, the selection of preservatíon materials and

methods for an adobe stmcture should be based on well-designed laboratory and field

invesrigations. After a preservation process has been finished, its effectiveness should be

observed over a period of tíme and the results should be tíioroughly documented.17

42

Stabilization of Adobe

Stabilizing agents can be combined with the adobe soil and water mixture during the

production of adobe building materials to improve the weathering resistance of the product.

Indeed, stabilized adobe bricks are in some cases used as a replacement for deteriorated

adobe in tíie preservatíon of historic adobe stmctures. The commonly used stabilizers are

portland cement, lime, bituminous, asphaltic emulsions, and sand.

Pordand cement is an effectíve stabilizing agent for several adobe soils, for it increases

both their strength and their endurance. For instance, "a 12 % addition, by weight, of

portland cement to a sandy soil increased the compressive strength by a factor of 5

compared to tíie unadulterated soil." The unadulterated adobes are less resistant to

weathering, rain damage, and freeze-thaw damage tíian are the soil-cement adobes. This is

because they shrink more during curing than the soil-cement adobe.l^

Portland cement can be used to stabUize almost all soUs, but soils with higher clay

contents require a higher amount of cement to have enough strength and durability.

Common proportions of cement to soil change from "1 part cement to 8 to 20 parts of soil.

Amount of mix water depends on the composition of soil and cement and the mix

design."l9

There is one disadvantage in the use of adobe soil cement material for replacing

deteriorated pcrtions in historic stmctures,and tíiat is the difficulty in duplicating the color

and texture of the original adobe. This is a common problem, however, for any type of

stabilizing agent.

Lime is used alone or in combinatíon with portland cement to stabilize adobe. For

effectíve stabilization of adobe, there should be a 15 % lime additíon by weight. But this

amount could be reduced to 10 % by adding 5 % portland cement.

Bituminous and asphaltic emulsions and some other kinds of materials have been used

successfully for years to waterproof adobe. The amount of bituminous and asphaltic

43

emulsion added is commonly 4 to 8 % by weight of the soil. There are two kinds of

asphaltic emulsions, anionic and cationic. "Some bituminous and asphaltic materials could

be important an objectionable color to adobe brick if they are used for the preservation of

some historic adobe structures."20 Sand can usually be added to soil with high clay

content. The purpose of this process allows adequate properties for adobe production.

The addition of sand will reduce the early age strengths of the adobe; however, the long-

term impact should be small.

There are various other stabUization agents. Among the suggested stabilization agents

are fresh blood and protein, vinyl acetate, sawdust, casein glue, vinsol resin, and aniline.

It seems that adequate stabilization agents are portíand cement, lime, and emulsions.

However, there are tíiree important factors about selectíng stabilized adobe for replacing

deteriorated materials: "[1] extent of color and texture duplication between the stabiUzed

and original adobe; [2] compatíbility of the physical properties of the stabilized and original

adobe; and [3] tíie potential damage to the original adobe caused by using a substitute

which has higher mechanical properties and which is more durable."21

Usually when tíie deteriorated part of tíie old stmcture is replaced with the stabilized

material, this can accelerate deterioratíon of the rest of the stmcture. For example,

replacing the adobe mortar by joining together an adobe block with an adobe-cement mortar

has often been found to accelerate the deterioratíon of the adobe brick.

Contínual maintenance has always been the key to successful adobe building survival.

After rehabilitation or restoratíon of a stmcture has been finished, some program of

contínuing maintenance should be initiated. Every change in the building should be noted.

Cracking, sagging, or bulging in adobe walls should be monitored regularly.

As a result, one can see that the preservatíon of historic adobe buildings involves

broad and complex problems. Adobe is a material formed of earth and is only a little

stronger than the soil itself. It is a material whose nature is to deteriorate. Therefore, the

44

propensity of adobe to deteriorate is the nature of adobe material, an ongoing process.

There are several ways to safeguard the building, but no entírely satisfactory method has

yet been developed. However, for preservatíon and maintenance of historic adobe

buildings in the region, one must [1] "accept the adobe material and its natural

deterioration," [2] "understand the building as a system," [3] "understand the forces of

nature which seek to retum the building to its original state."22

CHAPTER IV

ARCHITECTURAL AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

OF RESIDENTIAL ADOBE

"We shape our buildings and then afterward they shape us."

Winston Churchill

This chapter discusses the development of residentíal adobe architecture. The

discussion wUl be based on three different peoples, Indian Spanish, and American, their

cultures and traditions, and the way of living and giving shape to their house and

environment. Indeed, the architectural styles successfully combine elements from these

cultures: the Pueblo, the Spanish-American, and tíie Anglo-American. In the region, there

are three different building processes according to the development of architecture. The

development of the adobe houses will be given according to the relevant different cullural

backgrounds.

Evolution of Residentíal Architecture

Residentíal architecture is a product of feeling and a constítuent of the real fabric of

daily life. From primitíve society up to today, man has needed a kind of shelter to protect

himself from the environment, from other people, from animals and from weather. As a

result of these needs, the first shelter was a natural cave; and later, when people started

communal life and agriculture, they built permanent buildings. There are three different

building processes apparent in the development of architecture.l

There are many impacts on the forms of a house. Climate is one of the important

influences. According to varying kinds of climate, we can find a variety of house types.

For example, tíie house with a courtyard was developed for a dry, hot climate. Beside the

45

46

factor of climate, building material, constmction technology, site, defense, economics, and

religious and socio-cultural factors are very important impacts determining the form of

houses. Therefore, house form is not simply the result of physical forces or any other

single-cause factor, but" it is the consequence of a whole range of socio-cultural factors

seen in their broadest terms."2

More specifically,basic human needs have given special form to houses and dwellings

within tíie range of tíie term "house." The form of plan has been determined by various

basic culture-specific needs: family stmcture, positíon of women, privacy, and social

intercourse. Every culture gives shape to its houses, its dwellings, under the influence of

all tíiese factors. Therefore, it is easy to understand which houses or dwellings belong to

which social group or narionality.

Around Santa Fe and Taos, the adobe house took its form from three different cultural

backgrounds. During tíie primitive civilization, the adobe house was a shelter for people in

northem New Mexico. They were Indian people who built their first adobe rooms when

tíiey became an agricultural community. They settíed along tíie Rio Grande because of their

need for water. Later, 16tíi century Spanish people came to tíie same area and they taught

the Indian people how to mold adobe into bricks. Besides that, they brought the

Mediterranean and Moorish tradition witíi them. The Spanish houses borrowed several

elements from the Moorish houses. When the Americans invaded New Mexico, they, too,

introduced new building materials and constmction techniques, but they also conrinued to

use adobe with their new materials. Thus residenrial adobe architecture has witnessed a

cumularive architectural process. For example, during the Territorial Period, adobe houses

had larger windows because of the availability of glass, and doors and windows had

triangular pediments.

Today, many buildings in the Spanish Pueblo style strongly remind us of the

dwellings of the Pueblo Indians. Many people including arrists and architects and

47

craftsmen have leamed how to imitate the extemal features of Pueblo houses with great

fidelity and taste. The present-day Pueblo Indian house has a distinct similarity to its

prehistoric prototype. The Pueblo Indians themselves have kept alive many traditions

conceming the house and its functions.

The typical Pueblo Indian house before the Conquest days was made out of adobe or

stone or a combinarion of the two. The house was rectangular, with a flat roof. The size

of the room was determined by the length of the roof beams. Many rooms in the older

prehistoric viUages were no more than five feet squiu-e, but the ceiling was usually seven or

eight feet above the tamped earth floor. There was no outside door. The entrance to the

house (or room) was from a hatchway in the roof that also served as a vent for the smoke.

There were, as a mle, no windows of any size. The inside and outside walls were finished

with a smooth adobe plaster. Without any windows and doors, the house (or room) was a

perfect box. Outside, this box had the ends of the ladder sticking up out of the hatchway.

When the Pueblo Indians built tíieir houses, they never intended to erect lastíng

monuments. Also they never thought of buildings as works of art and therefore made no

effort to adom them. They built their houses to satisfy an immediate need, the need of their

own lifetíme. Indeed, the simplicity of both form and construction was important for them.

The basic stmctural unit was a boxlike room or a cell in Pueblo Indian architecture-

sometíiing tíiat Mindeleff first stated in his remarkable work on Hopi and Zuni architecture

in 1891. In their growing pattem, when tíiey wanted more interior space they built an

adjoining cell, and if more space was needed, a third ceU (see figure 11).

The Pueblo Indian buUding is a collectíon of individual rooms. A point to note is that

no matter how big or complex the building was,the su-ucture was actually nothing more

than a cluster of cells, each of which was a basic structural unit. For example, tíie largest

community house, like Taos Pueblo, six stories high and a quarter of a mile long, is a

honeycomb of small rectangular cells or rooms.

48

/ ^ - 1 - .

Figure II . Zuni Pueblo, Photograph, 1899, by A.C. Vroman (No. 2293-B in the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution).

49

Each room has been built and owned individually; the result is a large number of boxes

that could be added to or taken away from without the whole stmcture's being affected in

any significant way. Perhaps we can defend the observarion that "Pueblo Indian

architecture is a matterof mulriplication of the basic unit"3 (see figures 12 and 13).

The Indian pueblo was built as the basic social unit; therefore, it is impossible to fínd

one of these Pueblo Indian cells or rooms standing by itself. The basic social unii is rows

or clusters or blocks or several rooms which are built on top of one another. This social

unit was Hke an apartment house except that each room or house was built by its occupant.

There is one disrincrive and unifying feature about this apartment house: the religious

building, the "Kiva," was the center of the complex. Mindeleff says that "According to the

account of the old men tíie kiva was constmcted to enclose a sacred object and houses were

built on every side to surround the kiva and form its outer wall.'"*

There were tíierefore social and religious reasons that determined tíie organization of

tíiis cluster form of domestic architecture. The cluster of houses existed for one definite

reason: it exists to protect something sacred, a special room, close to it. The growth of this

cluster was related to family stmcture. When a son or a daughter married, the bride was

brought to the parents' house. Therefore, a new room, adjoining tíiat of the parents, was

built for the new couple. Another social reason for building tíie cluster houses was that of

mutual protection: they did not develop a military body, but the windowless and dooriess

ground floor of the houses was an important part of tíieir defense.

The house cluster is tíie basic unit; when a village expands, it will include several such

clusters. These clusters were usually built around one or two squares or plazas.

Sometimes these plazas are enclosed on all four sides by houses; sometímes there are

houses on two sides only. Usually the south side is open. Sometimes the plazas are large

and almost square; somerimes they are so long and narrow that they look like streets.

50

P Í T H O U S Ê

TVÆ P v j t b U o

Figure 12. The evolution of the pit house to the pueblo.

51

0 4lr„f

B t t t ' M c ; to**.t»JC»

®

%Lt(^ t N&

4 H O U V t

®

Figure 13, Urban forms of historical pueblos. 1. Taos 2. Acoma

52

There is one thing about Pueblo plazas that makes them unlike Westem or other plazas:

they have never been used as a place for public announcements or other official purposes.

However, the plaza was "a place where people watch the dancers and where the dances

take place; a place where there is a permanent shrine or kiva or religious marker of some

sort. It is a kind of open air room idenrified with the religious activities of the house

clusters surrounding it."^

The first Spanish explorers saw the upper Rio Grande Valley in 1540. The area was a

large mgged plateau with mountain ranges and broad valleys, and with an arid climate, hot

in summer and cold in winter. The land was similar to that of central Spain, which was

home for many of these people. The first Spanish colony was established in 1598, and

later a site on the Santa Fe River was chosen as the new govemment capital.

After the Spanish conquest of New Mexico, the Spaniards introduced a new type of

house. When tíiey buUt in New Mexico, they did not follow the multístoried form of the

Pueblo Indian stmctures in their building. The Spanish people used the tradirional house

around a court, as in Spain. A house facing inward to a central patio or atrium surrounded

by a colonnade probably took root in Spain during the period from about 200 B.C - 400

A.D., when Spain was a major Roman colony. The Moors who ruled parts of Spain for

more than 700 years reinforced "tíie tradition of the courtyard house as a private inward-

facing compound."6

The early Greek and especially Roman literature describe the Mediterranean house as

square, with a flat roof formed by laying logs across from wall to wall, and placing

wiUows or other small pieces of wood across the logs, and over this plastering layers of

mud which were then allowed to dry, sloping to drains formed of hollow logs. The

interiors of the houses usuaUy had white plaster wails, with floors of flat stones or of dried

mud swept clean. Such a description would also fít the typical New Mexico house of the

16tíi, 17th, and early 18th centuries. That house was a thick-walled building around one or

53

more inner courts or patios. All rooms opened onto the inner court, and usually there was

a porch or portal mnning around all four court walls.

This type of house, called a "hacienda," was built in isolation usually without any

outside opening, but with a pair of large, heavy wooden gate like doors, large enough to

ride horses and pull carts tíirough. In towns these haciendas were built along streets, each

house adjoining the next, with tíie large gate doors opening out to the street^ (see figure

14).

The hacienda type of Spanish Colonial house developed a long rime ago around the

Mediterranean area. The plan of the house derived from Ur, Mesopotamia (today Middle

East countries), Anatolia (Turkey), North Africa, and elsewhere within the Muslim culture.

Three main factors determined the plan of such a house: climate, socio-cultural forces, and

the Muslim reUgion. These houses were built one or two stories high around an inner

court. At the exterior tíiere were no windows; all the ventílatíon came from the doors to the

court. Sometímes tíiere was a colonnaded porch around the courtyard. This type of plan is

characteristic of residentíal suiictures in an arid climate. The court itself is the center of

family life, serving for family gathering and as a playground for the children^ (see figure

15).

The plan of this house improved and the inner courtyard became richer and more

elaborated after ind-oducrion of the Muslim religion. The main objecrive was the isolating

of women from the world of men but at the same time giving maximum freedom of

movement in tíie women's space, which was the house. Therefore, the house was

definitely separated from the street by high walls which usually surrounded the house,

But inside tíiis waU was a nice and pleasant place to live. Turkish culture with its Muslim

reUgion developed this house plan, which included ample vegetatíon and a pool or fountain

in the inner court. The house became a living organism inside.

54

e^nS5^

Figure 14. Hacienda plan. In this hypothetical plan drawn by Bainbridge Buntíng, the placite-centered house is adjoined by a protected corral and storage area. Early Architecture inNew Mexico (Albuquerque, 1976).

55

Figure 15. Floor plan of the traditional house from southem Turkey.

56

There is one similarity between this type of house and the Pueblo Indian house: every

room is a house in itself. When children got married, the family added one more room near

their own room. The arrangement of this growing pattern could be around a court or could

be aligned along just one side of a court or could be of "U" or "L" shape. The plan of the

house was based on a combination of geometry and symmetry (see figure 16).

The general type of the Spanish vemacular adobe house around Santa Fe and Taos

was a single line of rooms one story in height all around a square courtyard or plazuela.

Every room of a plazuela house had doors onto the courtyard and was protected by a

covered porch or portal along one or two walls. The exterior was stark and boxlike. The

rooms were usuaUy square or rectangular and generally about 13 to 16 feet in the directíon

of the span of the logs or vigas. The same room usually served as dining, sitting, and

sleeping room. The mattresses of straw or wool were folded during the day and were

placed against the wall for seatíng. At night they were unfolded for sleeping. Rooms

could be added on or torn down without affectíng the spatíal organization of the house.

One room might be owned by one family and anotíier room owned by a distantíy related

family. This could describe the way some houses evolved: "Beginning with a single room,

the house grew lUce a game of dominoes. As each son brought home his bride, he added a

room to one end of the patemal dwelling. Every room had its own outside door, and the

system solved the in-law problem by giving privacy to the married couples of the family "

Another feature of Spanish Colonial houses was the fireplaces, which developed in

Spain or somewhere else in the Mediterranean area. The fireplaces were usually of the

comer type, simply a smoke-gathering hood above the comer, with a tapering flue through

the roof. The purpose of the fireplaces was to heat spaces with wood.

The Spanish Colonial adobe house of northem New Mexico has been carried forward

to tíie twentíeth century, and has been radically transformed over the years to accept new

influences, meet changing requirements, and utilize modern materials and techniques

57

Figure 16, A common L-shaped plan with a single-fíle of rooms with porch.

58

AII tíiese transfomiatíons occurred foUowing the arrival of the United States Army in

1846. Thus began tíie period of upheaval and rapid change of the colonial way of life in

New Mexico. American influence was slight when the Santa Fe Trail opened in 1821; it

increased after annexatíon in 1848, and became major after the arrival of the railroad in

1880. Although many of the citízens of New Mexico were not happy with the American

annexatíon of their homeland, American culture was adopted quickly in the area.

During tíie period of the 1850 through the 1870 in Santa Fe and other prosperous

towns, the adobe houses were being "dressed up" with new white American-style

woodwork. These woodwork elements included neoclassical front porches with square

tapered columns, doors and double hung windows cased with milled lumber and capped

with classical pediments, balusd-ades between the porch columns, and somerimes a picket

fence outlining a front yard.l^

Another difference between tíie Spanish Colonial house and the American-style house

was tíie setting from the street. "Spanish Colonial houses were usually placed at the very

edge of tíie street but faced inward toward the courtyard. American-style houses were set

back from tíie street but were front facing and street oriented." With the American style

settíng, the Colonial courtyard house had been turned inside out.l 1

American-style houses and Spanish Colonial houses had the same Mediterranean

origin. Botíi the white neoclassical porch and the Spanish Colonial portal were derived

from the classical Mediterranean peristyle. The monumentality of both houses was

achieved by using large simple geometric forms and oversized architectural elements. The

front door was the focal point, and the facade was well proportíoned. Some of the features

of American-style houses were more successful than others. For example, "the second-

story plan was loosely u-ansformed into an attic space with dormer or gable windows."l2

The Territorial style is best typified by the use of a bumt-brick coping at the top of the

parapet walls on homes. The Territorial style was a combination of several elements. The

59

walls were adobe wuh the burnt brick firewall or coping. The doors and windows were

either Greek Revival or late Victorian. The adobe walls were usually plastered with a lime-

sand stucco. The beams of the house were often sawmiU cut, or adzed, square beams with

sawed or split boards laid over.13 This style was quite often a remodeling job on an older

house, with brick coping being added and with larger windows cut into the walls,

especially on the street side. The outside portal was added with typical modified Colonial

trim.

The Territorial style introduced a new type of plan with a symmetrical organization of

rooms. Doubie-hung sash windows were common. Window casings were more

elaborate, both inside and out. The interiors of houses were also more elaborate, with

wood floors, and carpeted floors. The ceilings were framed with rectangular beams cut

with crisp bead moldings.l"^

Popnlaritv of Residentíal Adohe Architecture

Santa Fe and Taos attracted creatíve folk during the age of colony building between

1900 and 1942. Nature, the environment, tíie ethnic variety, and culture were the strongest

drawing point. For a long tíme both Santa Fe and Taos were isolated from other parts of

tíie country, p!aces where "civiUzatíon fell asleep a thousand years ago-and has slept

since." The quality of northem New Mexico's social environment was enhanced by its two

ancient towns-Santa Fe and Taos. During that time many artists-author immigrants settled

in tiny mountain and canyon villages, but most of them chose Santa Fe and Taos because

tíiey found there both ancient history and natural beauty.

Taos's earth primitíveness-dominating highlands, awesome desert sweeps broken by the valley's brilUant green of irrigated orchards and comfields, and quaint earth-molded buildings- and its disparate human and cultural elements, made it a haven for those immigrants who found even simplistic Santa Fe'too progressive, woridly, and threatening. Its natural and social

60 environs yielded a plethora of unique, colorful, fresh subjects for literary and artistic interpretation that overpowered many of the émigrés.15

Architectural design became a matter of abiding concem and interest among artists and

authors in the early life of the Santa Fe and Taos colonies. The local architecture was of

Pueblo Indian and Spanish colonial styles. They were both constmcted of adobe, local

clayey soils mixed with water and sun-dried into hard, durable building material. In

addition to its functional application, "an adobe dwelling was imbued with a metaphysical

essence for tíie spiritually morivated, non-materialisric Indians-it symboUzed earth as the

mother, with tíie sun as the source of life." Adobe also symbolized the irrefutable

progression of Iife-"bom from the earth mother, sustained by herduring life, and

retuming to her at deatíi." 16

Architects and designers were actíve in the life both of Taos and of Santa Fe because

Santa Fe and Taos were places where original sources were available for works of art and

architecture works. Both the land itself and ancient cuhures held a great deal of potentíal

for new ideas. Most of these artísans spent the summer in northern New Mexico; a few

settíed tíiere. For example, John Gaw Meem settled and became the premier architect of

Santa Fe. The Santa Fe style became more widely accepted and popularized with his

works.

Meem was a man who "used the local past but did so with respect for the dignity and

symbolism of indigenous cultures and translation of architectural messages for modern

usage." He reflected tíie Natíve American architecture with the traditional extended family

Ufestyle instead of abandoning their elders to live in isolation or in retírement villages. He

"revered tíie past and adapted it for the present."^^

His aim was to create contemporary buildings which met contemporary funcrional

requirements but which used regional elements of traditional design to recall the rich

heritage of Southwestern architecture.

61

Indeed, he said:

To deprive tíie architect of the emotional sarisfaction of recalling tíie shapes and forms associated witíi the history and tradition of the region in which he lives is very much like disapproving of nature because she makes a son's face to recall tíiat of his father. Can it be tíiat we architects of the 20tíi century, in our devotion to tíie standards set by science and technology, are depriving ourselves of equally important requirements demanded by man's emotíonal nature?!^

There is one disappointíng thing about Meem's architecture: he did not always use

adobe material for building structures. But he designed buUdings witíi Pueblo Indian and

Spanish Colonial details. His buUdings were an imitation of these styles witíi

omamentatíon and detaUs. For example, his own home was buUt of stone with his usual

pueblo style. It is hard to tell whether it is an adobe house or not because of the details.

There are many houses built in this manner around Santa Fe and Taos. The waUs are

constructed with some otíier materials, but for finishing stucco is used, and also smooth

waUs are finished Uke adobe, and of course tíie vigas projected outside the walls suggest

Pueblo and Spanish Colonial roots.

Adobe is stíll a popular building material for housing among Pueblo Indians and

Spanish Americans in northem New Mexico. Adobe is the only material witíi which tíiey

can build cheaply and stUl inhabit comfortably. It is part of tiieir culture and tíieir past.

Therefore, rural houses and Indian Pueblo houses have continued to be built with adobe.

Rural houses are usuaUy built vdth adobe waUs and pitched roofs (see figure 17). The roof

helps to protect the adobe walls from rain. The flat-roof adobe was not known in the rural

part of northem New Mexico except for tíie typical Spanish-American rural dwelUngs in

the Southwest.l^

Behind contemporary residentíal adobe architecture around Santa Fe and Taos, there

lie tíiree different reasons: First, adobe is a traditional buUding material for Pueblo Indians

and Spanish Americans and it is also economical for them to use adobe for tíieir home.

62

Figure 17. This is a classical example of rural pitched roof adobes in Truchas. N.M.

63

Second, it is a part of the romantic movement and rediscovery of ancient history and

architecture. Third, adobe is economical for energy saving with solar heating and for being

thermal, cool during the summer and warm during the winter

Pueblo architecture has the most tangible manifestatíon of the spirit. The pueblos are

"an example of a simple, spontaneous life spent in harmony with nature and in touch with

elemental forces." According to Carlos Vierra, "the weathering of adobe by the elements

was in large part responsible for this organic quality: That which was not essentíal did not

endure, and that which did endure was marvelously enriched with the living, flowing

quality of free outíine and form. It is in realty a free-hand architecture, with the living

quality of a sculptor's work."20

After 1920, there was individual engagement with the Pueblo and Spanish cultures,

among a group of Santa Fe painters who built their houses together during the 1920's. The

manifestation of the romantic spirit has been the artist's house. The finest examples of the

type were built by Nicolia Fechin in Taos and Carlos Vierra in Santa Fe^l (see fígure 18).

During tíie 1950's and 1960's, northem New Mexico again conrinued to attract

sympathetic artists and architects by its "romanric regionalism." At tíiat tíme, economic

self-sufficiency was part of the new residentíal architecture. Architect WiUiam Lumpkins

and Peter van Dresser were early proponents of passive-solar design. Van Dresser built a

passive solar house with adobe consu^ctíon and Pueblo detailing in Santa Fe in 1958 (see

fígure 19).

Residenrial adobe architecture is popular around Santa Fe and Taos because individual

houses express personality in a rich variety of visual forms. Adobe buildings are a part of

tíieir environment and of nature. The houses represent a comprehensive link between the

past and the future. An adobe building itself is an abstract, a gestural, a geometric and a

symbolic figure.

64

Figure 18. Carlos Vierra House built in 1915, Santa Fe.

65

Figure 19. Van Dresser House, Santa Fe, was built in 1958.

66

Today people stíU build adobe houses, because for some it is a part of their heritage

and for others it is a synthesis between "traditional" and "modem" techniques. Each

individual has his own reason for building an adobe house. For example, Barbara and

Cliff Harmon built their house in Taos in 1950. During the adobe brick making process

and constmctíon, they got help from local Spanish people. The house has pueblo Indian

walls and Califomian interior details. They are botíi artísts and they love Taos and its

ancient art and architecture. Barbara describes her house as "a growing process, a living

and an organic stmcture." She also said that a adobe house has a poeric sense. It is an

architectural symbol of "primitíveness," although both rich and poor use adobe to build

their houses. Adobe houses are living sculpture, today, because the builders of the house

incorporate their own spirit in the building.

In conclusion, there are three different building processes which reflected in the

development of residentíal adobe architecture. These are primitíve, pre-industrial

vemacular, and high-style and modem. In northern New Mexico, "primirive" represents

Indian Pueblo adobe consdaictíon-very few building types, a model with few individual

variations, built by all. "Pre-industrial" is Spanish-American-more individual variarions of

the model, built by tradesmen. "High-style and modem" is Anglo American-each building

being an original creation designed by teams of specialists.22 However, there is one thing

about architecture tíiat has been consistent from 700 down to tíie present: a basic unity has

persisted because of the modular method of building. The differences among the three

cultures were primarily a matter of the arrangement of the units in the modules.

CHAPTERV

PRODUCTION AND MANUFACTURING OF ADOBE

"The language is the old language, and yet it is new..."

Benedetto Croce

Today adobe is one of the major building materials in New Mexico. From the U.S.

Bureau of Census reports, Gerbrant and May (1986) calculated that in 1850, 97% of the

homes were adobe; in 1980, only 12% of the homes were adobe. During this period, the

number of adobe dwellings increased from 13,050 to an estimated 59,500 adobe units, but

during the same period, the population increased from 61,546 to 1,299, 968. Based on

U.S. Bureau of Census reports (1986), it is estimated that 3% of the new homes built in

New Mexico during the 1970's were adobe. Today, adobe bricks continue to be produced

in Indian and Spanish-American communities. The majority of adobe bricks are used to

construct large scale, expensive homes throughout the state. Anglo-Americans produced

mostly pressed-earth blocks for commercial purposes; however, they also have experience

with traditional adobe.^

This chapter discusses adobe brick production and manufacturing techniques in New

Mexico. The use of adobe by the Pueblo Indians, the Spanish, and the Anglo-Americans

has resulted in a native architecture that is a unique aspect of New Mexico. Historically and

up to the present day, New Mexico has remained the largest manufacturer and user of

adobe bricks in the United States.

67

68

Production of Adobe Bricks

The procedures of production are classified as small-, medium-, or large-scale

manufacturing. Three major types of adobe bricks are produced in New Mexico-

tradirional, semistabUized, and stabilized, according to the New Mexico Bureau of Mines &

Mineral Resources research.

The selection of adobe soils is one of the most important parts of adobe production

because the quality of adobe bricks depends on tíie soil type. The most suitable adobe soil

is found in New Mexico's Rio Grande basin area that extends from Colorado to the Texas

border. This soU consists of roughly 55-75% sand and 25-45% finer material, usually

composed of equal parts of silt and clay.2

A good agricultural soil is not suitable for adobe bricks because of its mineral and

organic matter. Generally, soils which are poor for crop production are more sarisfactory

for making adobes. Adobe brick soil must contain four elements: "coarse sand or

aggregate, fine sand, silt, and clay." The amount of clay in tíie adobe soil is important

because too much clay wiU cause excessive shrinkage during the drying process, and

cracks wUl then develop. The soil structures high in clay may be much more resistant to

water and erosion but are not as strong. The sand provides strength; however, too much

sand will result in bricks tíiat cmmble easily. Many adobe brick makers blend together two

or more otherwise unsuitable soils to produce a mixture with the desired properties for use

in adobe bricks.

There are several advantages to the use of adobe as a constmcrion material as foUows:

[1] Adobe is a native material tíiat is widely available throughout tíie state at Httíe or no cost to individuals willing to produce their own adobe bricks. [2] Adobe bricks were reasonably priced in 1980, averaging 26.6 cents for a traditional 10xl4x4-inch adobe for those wishing to purchase bncks from a local adobe yard. [3] Adobes are adaptable to most types of new housing constmcnon including solar-designed buildings and certain types of commercial stmctures.

69 [4] Test results as noted in the section on physical properties show that the majority of adobes meet the Uniform Building Code and the New Mexico State Building Code for strength and durability. [5] Buildings of adobe are fire resistant, unaffected by termites, and good sound insulators. [6]. Traditional, semistabilized, and stabilized adobe bricks have excellent durability and resistance to erosion by wind and sandstorms, thus requiring littíe maintenance. [7] Semistabilized and stabilized adobe bricks are resistant to penetratíon and degradatíon by water and, because they remain so dry, provide an especially comfortable and healthy thermal environment. [8] The traditional adobe stmcture, coated with a protective cement scratch cover and stucco, is fully protected against excessive wear and weather. A well maintained traditional adobe building, plastered with nothing but adobe mud, can also be extremely durable as is demonstrated by the 900-years-old Taos Pueblo buildings and tíie over 300 years of continuous governmental use of the Palace of the Govemors building in Santa Fe.3

There are several adobe production methods. These include the making of traditional

adobe bricks, semistabilized adobe bricks, stabilized adobe bricks, terrônes, quemados,

pressed-eartíi blocks, and rammed-earth walls. This discussion will cover first the three

major productíon techniques.

The traditional adobe brick is made with soil composed of a homogeneous mixture of

clay, sand, and silt. Sometimes straw is added to prevent the brick from cracking when

curing. Traditional adobe can be found in the majority of cities, villages, and pueblos.

There are two ways to protect adobe stmctures. One method is to use a simple adobe mud

mixture which usually requires periodic application. Sometimes such a mixture lasts longer

with wire mesh and cement stucco. Another solution is provided by owners of adobe

stmctures who have added a pitched tin or corrugated iron roof with overhang to protect the

adobe roof and walls from erosion. In tíiis way the durability of traditional adobe bricks is

well maintained.^

To avoid tíie cold winter climate of New Mexico, the adobe makers produce tíieir

adobe in the wann summer montíis and stockpile for a certain quantíty of building projects

which wiU be under construction in the winter or early spring months. This also gives an

opportunity to the commercial adobe producer to raise adobe brick prices.5

70

Semistabilized adobe brick is tíie most widely produced brick in the region. The name

is derived from the practíce of adding a small amount of stabilizer to the adobe mixture to

make water-resistant bricks. However, semistabilized brick is made the same way as

traditional brick except that a 2-3% amount of asphalt emulsion is added.6

Fully stabilized adobe brick is referred to as "treated adobe" by the New Mexico

Building Code. The mixture of fully stabilized adobe brick includes a 5-12% asphalt

emulsion added to help to produce water-resistant adobe bricks for commercial use.

Stabilizers: The purpose of adobe stabilizers is to increase the weather resistance of the

adobe brick. The stabilizers are mixed in the basic soil of adobe brick to produce

waterproof bricks. Although twenty different materials are used as stabilizers, the most

common are 1989 the following: sand, straw, portland cement, lime, and bituminous and

asphalt emulsion. Asphalt emulsion is widely used by the large-scale commercial adobe

brick producers in New Mexico to protect the bricks from drying in adobe production yards

during intense rains.7

Stabilizing of adobe bricks can offer certain advantages. According to a Califomia

Research Corporation report, tíiese advantages include the following:

[1] Resistant to penetration and degradatíon of water: "Stabilized adobe bricks are

repellent to moisture from aU sources, including rain, fog, dew, and even capiUary

moisture from the ground." Stabilized adobe will not "swell, shrink, warp, rot, or

disintegrate from prolonged contact with moisture and are the driest masonry known."

[2] Has excellent insulating quality: "Because stabilized adobe brick walls always

remain dry, tíiey have excellent natural insulatíng propertíes." Buildings which are built

with stabiUzed adobe bricks are "comfortable in hot weather, usually having an inside

temperature considerably lower than tíie outside" temperature.

[3] Durability is good: "Stabilized adobe bricks resist the erosion of wind and sand

storms to a far greater degree than traditíonal [unu-eated] adobe bricks and require less

71

maintenance." When the walls are weU designed, adobe buUdings have good resistance to

damage by earthquake stresses.

[4] Termiteprooft "Stabilized adobe brick walls are completely unaffected by termites,

by rot, and by other destmctíve insects, thus promotíng the durability of the wood used to

constmct the roof and fittings such as door and window frames."

[5] Fireproof: "Walls made with eitíier stabilized or traditíonal adobe have no fire

hazard." The stmcture is completely safe except for the interior fittíngs such as floor,

windows, and door frames.

[6] Stabilized adobe stmctures are safe: "Because stabilized adobe is waterproof,

stmctures built with this material have little tendency to disintegrate or collapse under

exposure to prolonged or extreme moisture conditions." Stabilized adobe bricks as a

constmcrion material are in the Unifonm Building Code and tíie New Mexico State Code.

[7] Painring is easily accomplished: "Stabilized adobe bricks may be painted or

colored to any shade desired for those who do not care for tíie natural earth color. The

waterproof quaiity of tíiis material permits the decoratíve coatíng on its surface to be

exceptionally durable."

[8] Cost is reasonable: "Stabilized adobe brick constmctíon is low in materials cost

and fumishes a good opportunity for fabricarion by the owner himself, using either

commercially made or home made bricks."^

Molding: The variety of molding forms helps the makers of adobe to produce many

different sizes and shapes of adobe bricks. The majority of molding fomis are made of

wood with tíie sides, ends, and divider members usually 4 inches wide. This produces the

standard 4-inch tíiick adobe brick. The common use of 2x4s to build forms produces a

3.5-inch tíiick, Ughter adobe 27-30 Ibs in weight.^ The molding forms can be made of

metal, as well. When molds are made of wood, they are usually "soaked in waste oil to aid

separation, although simple wetring wiU also do."l^

72

In small-scale adobe production used for by u-aditional adobe, makers use "a two or

four adobe wooden molding form, which can be handled by a single individual."

Commercial and larger-scale adobe producers will have "several hundred wooden molding

forms resembling ladders that are called gang molds." The gang molds may "vary from

seven to ten molders per form." In some cases, "adobe molding forms were constructed

entirely of steel, aluminum, tín, or plastíc."ll

The major factor for making successful adobe bricks is a warm and dry climate. The

molding and curing of adobe bricks must be done during certain periods of dry weather.

Therefore tíie use of adobe bricks is generally limited to arid lands, though sometimes this

is not absolutely necessary. Areas which have periods of a week or more without rain

would also be sufficient for adobe producrion.

The adobe brick making process can be divided into a series of different steps. Many

rimes, the source of the adobe soil is located on the building site itself. Often the soil

excavated from tíie basement is used, but somerimes tíie soil source is located away from

the buUding site.

After preparing the soU for manufacturing, the soil can be mixed by hand or with a

concrete mixer. When the mixing is done by hand, the simplest method is to use a soak

pit. If stabilizers are used, there must be some kind of quantítative measuring method

which can control quality and uniformity.

The water from any source will be sufficient,as long as it is low in dissolved salts.

During tíie drying period, the salt crystals wiU 'recrystallize and can do physical damage to

the surface of tíie brick." Extremely brackish water should not be used for mixing bricks

or mortar.

The initíal drying period for molded adobe bricks ranges in time anywhere from 2-3

days in hot summer weather to several weeks in the winter, Dunng the drying periods, the

bricks may be temporarily protected by plastíc. These should be later removed for curing

73

to continue. The molding yard must be carefully designed and cared for with ground

grades and drainage so that rainwater runoff wiU not collect or be channeled through the

molded bricks.

Production Methods of Adobe Bricks

A number of options are available for producing adobe bricks. They can be produced

by traditíonal (handcrafted), semimechanized and fuU mechanized methods.

Traditional: Traditíonal bricks can be produced with tools as simple as a shovel and a

one-brick form. A crew of two can produce 300-400 bricks per day wiih this method.12

Traditíonal bricks are most often produced for noncommercial use by individuals for their

own constmction projects. Traditíonal (handcrafted) technique is used among Indian and

Spanish people and those who want to build their own adobe. It is a part of the "do it

yourseIf."13

Eloy Montano Sand and Gravel (Santa Fe), "located by the airport road in the

southwest section of Santa Fe, is a typical adobe yard tíiat uses the traditíonal method of

productíon." With two or three employees, they make adobe bricks in the foUowing

manner

[1] The adobe soil from the stockpile is used to build a mudpit into which are placed the adobe soil and water. The soil and water are mixed by hoe and shovel untíl the proper adobe-mud mixture has formed. Depending upon the type of soil used, straw is usually added to prepared adobe bricks from cracking excessively. [2] The prepared adobe mud in shoveled into a wheelbarrow and is delivered to several four-mold wooden fonms that have been laid out on the leveled ground of the adobe yard. The mud is then dumped into the molding forms, tamped by hand into tíie comers, and bmshed clean of excess material. [3] The molding forms are removed by hand, with care taken to retam the shape of the four adobe bricks, and the excess mud is washed from the forms prior to replacing tíiem on the level ground. [4] After two or three days of drying, the bncks are tumed on edge and are uimmed of excess material and any rough edges. The bricks are then

74 allowed to sun cure for three to four weeks before they are stacked for delivery.l'*

Semimechanized: The semimechanized metíiod of adobe brick production is similar to

tíie traditíonal [handcrafted] method except that front-end loaders and mixing equipment-

pugmills, plasîer mixer, and cement mixers are used. The semimechanized adobe producer

can make "1,000,000 or more bricks per year."!^ There are several large-scale adobe brick

producers in New Mexico. The production process of adobe bricks is similar among the

producers' companies. One of the largest producers of adobe bricks in the state is New

Mexico Earth, a company established in 1972 and managed by Richard Levine of Alameda,

New Mexico. Their method of productíon of adobe bricks is as follows:

[1] The soil, perhaps sand as well, is delivered to tíie adobe yard and stockpiled adjacent to the hopper. The material is moved from the stockpUe by a front-end loader and placed into the 8x8ft pugmill hopper. [2] The soil mixture, water, and asphalt emulsion are added simultaneously in the pugmiU. Two shafts studded with paddles rotate in the u-ough of the pugmiU and continuously mix the adobe material as the mud works its way to the open and of tíie trough. The mud drops into a large mudpit [30x80 ft], and a front-end loader removes and carries the mud to the adobe-Iaying

[3] Lccated in the leveled adobe yard are usually 500-600 ten-mold wooden forms. The adobe mud is dumped into the forms and then raked and leveled. The newly laid bricks are allowed to dry for several hours or untU they have started to shrink from the form side. The molding forms are then lifted and moved to a new area. [4] The adobe bricks are allowed to sun dry for two or three days, atter which rime they are tumed on edge, trimmed, and remain in tíie adobe yard for delivery or are stacked to cure. [5] The delivery system at New Mexico Earth consists of several 2-5 ton flatbed tmcks with a local delivery capability of approximately 5,000 adobe

bricksperday.l6

Mechanized techniques of adobe brick producrion are usually associated with large-

scale manufacîuring of adobe bricks and maximum use of mechanical equipment.

Additional types of equipment are a front-end loader, pugmUls or ready-mix cement trucks,

and machine-powered mechanical adobe layers.

One of the largest producers of adobe bricks in northem New Mexico is "Medina's

Adobe Factory, owned and managed by Mel Medina of Alcale, New Mexico." They also

75

produce semistabilized adobe bricks of 4xl0xl4-inch size. Their production process is as

foUows:

[1] Local sandy loam is obtained by land leveling nearby alluvial or pediment deposits. The sand loam is hauled to the adobe yard and stockpiled adjacent to the pugmill mixer. The soil is removed from the stockpile by a l,5-yard3 front-end loader and is dumped onto a 1-inch-maximum particle-size screen located over the pugmill. [2] Approximately 3 yards^ of adobe soil are screened and placed in tíie pugmill, where water and asphalt emulsion are added to the mixing process. The two pugmill shafts, studded with paddles, rotate in the trough of the 4x6-ft pugmUI and mix the adobe mud for 15-20 minutes. The mud is then dumped into a large 33x75x7-ft mudpit. The production crew mix and dump a sizable amount of adobe mud throughout the moming. [3] In the aftemoon, a front-end loader moves the adobe mud from the mudpit to the mud hopper on the Hans Sumpt-type adobe-Iayer machine. The machine , called a self-propelled adobe layer, is operated by one person who maneuvers it across the level adobe yard depositíng 25 standard 4xl0xl4-inch adobe bricks at a tíme. The steel adobe form is tíien hydraulically Ufted by the machine operator and the adobe layer is moved ahead for the next batch. A contínuous straight line of adobe bricks that are ready for drying is produced in the yard. [4] The new[y laid bricks, which cover a large area of tíie adobe yard and which may total several thousands, are then allowed to dry for two or three days, depending on the weather. They are tíien hand-tumed on their side by the adobe crews, trimmed of any excess material, and allowed to dry for a minimum of three weeks under normal conditions. [5] When tíie bricks have cured sufficientíy, they are stacked directly on the semi-flatbed tmcks for delivery or are placed on wooden pallets that hold 70 bricks per pallet. The stacked pallets are lifted onto a tmck by a forklift, which is also hauled to tíie purchaser's building site, permitring placement of tíie stacked adobe bricks adjacent to the constmctíon project.l7

The conrinued growth of the adobe brick industry in the state depends upon three basic

factors: [1] "the abiHty to locate and secure supplies of low-cost adobe-soil material from

federal, state, or private land"; [2] "the economic considerarions related to producrion,

transportation, and markering of adobe bricks"; and [3] "the acceptance by federa[ agencies

and others of the good physical quaUtíes and advantages of adobe bricks."i^

In the Southwest area, the Indian and Spanish popularions have long used adobe to

constmct homes. Indeed, this cultural and historic use of narive soils has developed into

the largest adobe industry in the United States. New Mexico's "adobe industry continues

76

the largest adobe industry in the United States. New Mexico's "adobe industry continues

to maintain an average production rate of 3 to 4 million adobe bricks and pressed-earth

blocks per year." The Indians and Spanish-Americans conrinue to desire adobe houses

built in the tradirional architectural style. The solar adobe constmcrion has also made the

adobe industry grow. Approximately "3% of the new homes built in New Mexico are

adobe: an average of 500 to 600 new homes are built each year."l^

Today there are regularions regarding the quality and design of adobe construcrions in

section 2412 of the New Mexico Building Code (Construction Industries Division, 1988).

The standard size of an adobe brick is 4x10x14. The mortar should be earth mortar, which

is thesame type as the adobe bricks. However, lime, sand-cement mortars of Types M, S,

N, are also allowed. Adobe bricks should not be laid in tíie wall unit fully cured. "Adobe

shaU not be used for foundation or basement waUs. All adobe walls, except as noted under

Group M Buildings, shall have a conrinuous concrete fooring at least 8 inches thick and not

less tíian 2 inches wider." The foundatíon walls should be at least as thick as the exterior

wall.20

Adobe bricks should not be used in any building more than 2 stories in height. The

height of adobe walls without side support should be not more than 10 tímes tíie thickness

of the walls. For exterior walls, "a minimum tíiickness of 10 inches for single story and a

minimum tíiickness of 14 inches for the bottom story of a two story with the upper story

allowed a minimum thickness of 10 inches."2l

The two types of rie beams are used concrete and wooden tie beams. Concrete tie

beam should be "a minimum of 6 inches thick by width of top of wall. A bond beam

centered to cover 2/3 of the widtíi of the top of the wall by 6 inches tíiick shall be allowed

for walls wider than 24 inches." Wooden tie beam should be "a minimum of 6 inch wall

thickness except as provided for walls thicker than 10 inches above. The building official

shall approve all wooden tie beams for walls thicker than 10 inches."22

77

For window and door opening, wooden or concrete lintels should be used. The size

of wooden lintels should be "a minimum 6 inches by wall widtíi. AIl ends shall have a wall

bearing of at least 12 inches. AII lintels, wood or concrete, in excess of 9 feet shall have

approval of the building officiaI."23

In conclusion, adobe bricks are produced in three different ways and are of seven

different types. However, traditíonal, semistabilized, and stabilized types of adobe bricks

are more common than the other types t)ecause the majority of adobe producers are Indian

and Spanish people who usually make traditional and semistabilized adobe bricks with

handcrafted (traditional) and semimechanized techniques. Generally, adobe producers for

commercial purposes usually produce stabilized adoh)e bricks with full mechanized

technique. Therefore, they can produce large num[)ers of adobe bricks in a short period of

tíme.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

"I would have then, our ordinary dwelling houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as many be within and without.... with such difference as might suit and express each man's character and occupation and partíy his history."

John Ruskin

The residential adobe architecture around Santa Fe and Taos has a long history behind

with three different cultural background. Form the ancient history up to the present, adobe

has long been one of the most essential building material since the dawn of man in New

Mexico. Adobe has been used throughout centuries in rural housing, as well as larger and

more prestigious monuments. For so many years in the past and still today, Adobe

architecture was one of the primitive and poor man's architecture but during the 20th

century this architecture became rich man desire in New Mexico. Indeed, today one-third

of the world population still live in the adobe structure.

From the ancient Indian people society to the Spanish-American and the Anglo

American society, the adobe architecture has a link in the human chain that connecters from

the past to the present and to the future. Therefore, the historical architecture is a guide for

the present and the future architecture in northern New Mexico. The Pueblo Indian people

built homes with adobe material. Their method was to puddle, which was stiff damp

courses of mud about 8 to 10 inches deep one on top of another. When Spanish people

arrived to the region in the 16th century they brought a new type of adobe molding method

with them. This was a crafted of fomiing adobe brick in wooden molds. The Spanish

people leamed this method form the Moorish during the Moslem occupation of Spain. The

Indian people immediately adopted this method of construction, abandoning the puddling

system. The same technique has been used in the area since then up to the present day.

78

79

Domestíc adobe architecture took root from three different cultures in northem New

Mexico. They are the Pueblo Indian, Spanish-American, and Anglo-American. During the

history, every individual culture has been added something to this architecture from its

society, culture, tradition, and religion. Indeed, the region has a strong architecture

heritage which has been established a unique personality and traditíon for the region. There

is a link from the Indian pit house to the modem adobe house in the region, both

architectural and u-aditíonal.

Residentíal adol)e architecture is the result of a long evolutíon of style, materials,

adaptatíon to sites, orientatíon, and combination of all these elements. The architecture is

the reflection of environment, people and nature. The adobe architecture is expressing

man's most fundamental creatíve impulses proclaiming the cultural characteristícs of builder

because people who build an adobe stmcture according to their own inner light and

imagination. This developed a traditional architecture which has its own favorite forms and

details, as peculiar to that society as its language.

Despite of the styles and the architecture periods, residential architecture has similar

vocabularies in the region, but the use of these vocabularies is different according to the

various cultures. However, adobe buildings have the massive and the smooth corner lines

at the exterior with the flat roofs, portal, projected vigas, and tíie wooden gate which lead

to the front yard or to tíie court. In the interior, the spirit of space represents tíie taste of

builders with the fireplace, southwest style fumitures, and unity of space. Also the interior

of modem adobe houses reflects traditional folk life with the unity of outdoor. The

fumiture of modem adobe has influence from the"primitive" life and a combinatíon of

traditíonal and modem architecture.

The preservation of historic adobe building involves broad and complex problems

because adobe is a material formed of earth and is only a little s -onger than the soil itself.

Adobe has a nature to deteriorate; therefore, the propensity of adobe to deteriorate is a

80

natural, and ongoing process. Thus tíiere are several ways to safeguard the adobe

building, but no entirely satisfactory method has yet been developed. However, for

preservation and maintenance of historic adobe buildings in the region, one must [ [ | accept

the adobe material and its natural deterioration, [2] understand the building as a system, [3|

understand the forces of nature which seek to retum the buiiding to its originai state.

Domestic adobe architecture represent three different building processes in the area.

From Amos Rapoport classification for the residential building processes can be match

perfectly with these building processes of northern New Mexico. "Primitive, pre-industrial

vemacular, and high-style and modem."

The primirive architecture in northem New Mexico is the great Pueblo Indian

architecture. The pueblo architecture is an example of a simple, spontaneous life spent in

harmony with nature and in touch with elemental forces. When the Indian people built their

buildings, they never intended to erect lastíng monuments. Indeed, they built their house to

satísfy an immediate need, the need of their lifetime. Therefore, tíie simplicity of form and

constmctíon were important for them. They built cluster houses for the basic social unit.

Thus, the Pueblo Indian architecture is a matter of multíplication of the basic unit.

The pre-industrial is Spanish American architecture. This architecture has more

individual variatíons and is built by everyone. Spanish American architecture is also the

vemacular (mral) architecture. There is a variety of this architecture in terms of the use of

the material and the type of tíie plan. The small size rural houses have a certain plan type

which is single-file and hacienda. Hacienda has a innercourtyard and has single floor. In

single file plan, the number of rooms is related to the number of members in the family.

The size of the family determines the plan of house. The fireplace is the heart of the house.

In the old tradirion, the fireplace was only a source for hearing in the cold winter time. The

mral adobe houses in mountain villages have usually metal gable roof to protect adobe

81

stmctures from rain and snow water because water is the worst enemy for adobe

stmctures.

The high-style and modem adobe architecture represents Anglo-American adobe

architecture from the beginning of the 20th century and the present time architecture in the

northem New Mexico. After the American army arrived in 1846, the isolated state opened

its doors to other part of the United States. Therefore, new ideas and materials were

introduced to tíie Indian and Spanish people. There was a new type of house plan with a

strong symmetry. Of course, this new type of house was the productíon of Anglo-

American culture. The layout of houses was totally different than those were before. The

main entrance of the house was more opened to the street. This was the opposite from the

Spanish house.

At tíie beginning of tíie 20tíi century people who had interest in southwestem art and

architecture built adobe houses witíi a combination of their Anglo taste and traditionai

architecture. As a result, this movement has given birth to a new architecture style which is

caUed tíie "Santa Fe style" or "Adobe Revival style." This was the part of a romanric

regional movement to preserve ancient history and architecture.

Today people srill build and live in the adobe houses, but every individual has some

reason for living or for building an adobe house. For example, for Indian and Spanish

people, adobe stmcture is part of their history and heritage. Indeed, they know how to

make adobe brick and how to build adobe stmcture in the o-adirional way. This is the only

material that also costs less money and labor to built a stmcture, and it is economic, and

cost less hearing and cooling. An adobe house is cool in û\c summer and warm in the

winter Thus, one can have excellent thermal comfort in an adobe house. After the energy

crisis in 1973, adobe structures have been combined with passive solar system. The solar

heatíng project is the perfect option for adobe material because the material itself works the

same way. Adobe has the ability to absorb slowly and to re-radiate slowly great quantities

82

of heat. Indeed, adobe serves as a temperature stabilizer, helping to average out daily and

even seasonal variarions and making buildings that are, almost everyone has noted for a

very long rime, cool in the day and warm at night, warm in the winter and cool in the

summer.

Adobe is on the whole a mean material, but it has a memorable visual quality and an

important thermal one. Adobe stmctures are systems that physically holds buildings up,

and the sdTjcture also involves conceptual stmctures which bind a work of architecture into

an imaginarive whole. Therefore, in its native, pre-colonial time, adobes were used to

create a primirive urban architecture; in the colonial rime, they were used to stmcture a

fusion of primitive tradirion with 17th century European religious principles and

architectural memories. In the 20tíi century, they have been used as the framework for old-

fashioned romance and old-fashioned purities.

ENDNOTES

Introducrion

1. see p. 15. Bainbridge Bunring, "Development of Spanish Pueblo Architecture in Soutwest." New Mexico Architect. No. 9-10: 12-24. 1966.

Chapter I

1. For more information, see p. 7. Jean Dethier. Down to Earth Adobe Architecture: an Old Ideas a New Future. New York, 1982.

2. see pp. 11-15. Jerome lowa. Ageless Adobe History and Preservation in Southwest Architecture. Santa Fe, N.M.: Sunstone Press, 1985.

3. For more information, see p. 2, Bainbridge Bunring, Earlv Architecture in New Mexico. Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1976.

4. lowa 1985, p. 16.

5. Bunring 1976, p. 12.

6. ibid.

7. lowa 1885, p. 19.

8. see note 2 p. 23.

9. From Santa Fe National Park Service, National Register of Historic Place Continuation Sheet for "Camino del Monte Sol Historic District," Santa Fe County, N.M., March 14, 1988. UnpubHsh material, see pp. 2-8,

10. ibid.

11. Bunting 1976, p. 12.

12. see Bunting 1976, p. 24.

13. lowa 1985, p. 25.

14. Bunting 1976, p. 63

15. lowa 1985, p. 33.

16. see lowa 1985, p. 34.

83

84

17. ibid. p. 35.

18. ibid. p. 36.

19. ibid. p. 38.

20. ibid.

21. ibid. pp. 46-47. 22. see p. 75, Cari D. Sheppard, Creator of the Santa Fe Stvle: Isaac Hamilton Rapp.

Architec. Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1988.

23. Patric R. Cristopher, "The Architecture of Santa Fe: A Survey of Style," New Mexico Architecture. (9,10): 12-35, 1978.

24. lowa 1976, p. 84.

25. ibid.

26. Cristopher 1978, p. 28.

27. see p. 14, Fred G. Sturm, "Aesthetics of Soutwest," Pueblo Stvle and Reeional Architecture. Edited by Nicholas C. Markovich, New York, N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.

Chapter II

1. Jerome lowa, Ageless Adobe: Historv and Preservation in Southwest Architecture. Santa Fe, N.M.: Sunstone Press, 1985, pp. 94-95.

2. see p. 11, Arrel Morgan Gibson, The Santa Fe and Taos Colonies: Age of the Muses. 1912-1942. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

3. ibid. p. 13.

4. ibid. pp. 90-91.

5. For more informadon see, Bainbridge Bunting, John Gaw Meem: Southwest Architecture. Foreword by Paul Horgan, Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1983, pp. 4-7.

6. ibid. pp. 14-15.

7. seep. A "Pr( c«>rvarir.n nf Hktnrir AHohc Riiilding. "-Prescrvation Brief No. 5, Technical Preservation Service Division, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. (U.S. Govemment Printing Office 1978 GPO stock NO. 024-016-00134-6).

85 8. Anthony Crosby, "Common Source of Deterioration," Adohe Practical and Technical

Aspects of Adohe Conservation. Edited by James W. Garriso & Elizabeth F. Ruffner, Heritage Foundation of Arizona, 1983, pp. 13-18.

9. see 36 CFR 68. 1-68.4, April 1981. The Secretarv of the Interíor's Standards for Historic Preservation Proiects.

10. see p. 27., James W. Garrison, "Approaches to Rehabilitation of Adobe Buildings," Adobe Practical & Technical Aspects of Adobe Conservation. Heritage Foundation of Arizona, 1983.

11. ibid.

12. see note 9, 36 CFR 68. 1-68. 3.

13. see pp. 16-19, James R. Clifton, "Preservation of Historic Adobe Structure: A Status Report." National Bureau of Standards Technical Note. No. 934. Wa.shington, D.C.; Feb., 1977.

14. ibid.

15. ibid. p. 22.

16. ibid. p. 23

17. ibid. p. 9.

18. see note 12 p. 9.

19. ibid.

20. ibid. p. 10.

21. see note 12 p. 12

22. see note 4. p. 8.

Chapter III

1 For more information see p. 8, Amos Rapoport, House From and Culture. Englewood Cliff, N.J.: Prennce-Hall, 1969.

2. ibid. p. 47.

3 JB Jacson, "Pueblo Architecture and Our Own," LanciiCâEÊ, III, No. 2 (Winter 1953-54), pp. 22-23.

4. ibid.

5. ibid. p. 24

86 6. Beverly Spears, American Adobes: Rural Houses of Northem New Mexico.

Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1986, p. 29.

7. William Lumpkins, La Casa Adohe. Santa Fe, N.M.: Ancient City Press, 1961, p. 4.

8. Peter Stead, "Lesson in traditional and vemacular architecture in arid zones," Housing in Arid Land: design and planing Edited by Gideon Golany, New York: The Architecture Press, 1980, pp. 33-44.

9. see note 6 p. 29.

10. ibid. p. 49.

11. ibid. p. 50.

12. ibid. p. 51.

13. see note 7 p. 5.

14. Bainbridge Bunting. Early Architecture in New Mexico. Albuquerque, N. M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1976, pp. 94-95.

15. seep. 21. Arrell Morgan Gihson. The Santa Fe and Taos Colonies: Age of the Muses. 1900-1942. Nonman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

16. ibid. p. 89.

17. Anne Taylor. Southwest Omamentation & Design: tíie Architecture of John Gaw Meem. Santa Fe, N. M.: Sunstone Press, 1989, p. 13,

18. Anne Taylor. Southwest Omamentarion & Design: Architecture of John Gaw Meem. Santa Fe, N. M.: Sunstone Press, 1989, p. 20.

19. A.W. Conway, "A Northem New Mexico House-Type: and Suggestion for the denrifying of Others." Landscape. No. 1:(20-21), Autumn 1951.

20. seep. ^'^, r^r\r.^ viprr;. "MPW Mpvirn Arrhitectire." Art and Archeologv. 7(1,2):37-47, 1918.

21. Chris Wilson, "New Mexico in the Tradirion of Romantic Reaction," Pueblo Stvle and Regional Architecture, Edited by Nicholas C. Markovich, New York, N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990, p. 177.

22. see note 1 p. 8.

Chapter IV

1. For more information about terminology and characteristics of adobe brick see p. 13 14, Smith Edward W. Adobe brick in New Mexico. Socorro, N.M.: State of New Mexico, 1982.

87

2. ibid. p. 15.

3. see note 1 p. 14.

4. ibid. p. 23.

5. ibid. p. 25.

6. see note 4.

7. ibid. p. 14. 8. seepp. ?-6-?.7, FHwarH W Smith Ri George S. Ausrin. Adobe. pressed-earth. and

rammed-earth industries in New Mexico. Socorro, N. M.: Bulletin 127, New Mexico Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources 1989 A Division of New Mexico Insritute of Mining & Technology.

9. see note 1 p. 19.

10. seep. 6^, Panl Graham McHenry. Adohe and Rammed Earth Buildings: Design and Constmcrion. Tuscon, The University of Arizona Press, 1984.

11. see note 1 pp. 19-22.

12. see p. 67 from note 9.

13. ibid.

14. see note 8 pp. 26-27.

15. see note 1 p. 27.

16. see note 8 p. 28.

17. ibid. pp. 31-33.

18. see note 1 p. 63.

19. ibid.

20. seep. 22. ronstmction Industries Division. New Mexico Building Code: ronstmcrion Industries Division, General Constmcrion Bureau, Santa Fe, N.M.: 1988.

21. ibid. p. 24.

22. ibid. p. 25.

23. ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adler, M. R. Old SantaFe Todav. Third Edition, Albuquerque, N.M.: The Historic Santa Fe Foundarion,1982.

Barker, Ruth Laughlin. "The Hearths of Santa Fe." House and Garden. No. 51:122, Feb., 1927.

Bunring, Bainbridge. "Development of Spanish Pueblo Architecture in Southwest," New Mexico Architecture. No. 9-10:14-24,1966,

—. Earlv Architecture in New Mexico. Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1976.

—. John Gaw Meem: Southwestern Architect. Foreword by Paul Horgan, Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1983,

—. Taos Adobes: Spanish Colonial and Territorial Architecture of the Taos Vallev. Santa Fe, N.M.: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1964.

Caperton, Thomas J. "Adobe Stabilizarion Techniques," Adobe Pracrical & Technical Aspects of Adobe Conservarion. Heritage Foundation of Arizona, 1983.

Christopher, Patrick R. "The Architecture of Santa Fe: A Survey of Style," New Mexico Architecture. No. 9-10:12-35,1978.

Clark, Kennetíi N. & Paylore, Patricia. Desert Housing: Balancing Experience and Technology for Dwelling in Hot Arid Zones. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona, 1980.

Clifton, James R. "Preservarion of Historic Adobe SODCture: A Status Report," National Bureau of Standards Technical Note. No. 934. Washington, D.C.: Feb., 1977.

Conway, A. W. "A Northem New Mexico House-Type: and Suggesrion for the Idenrifying of Others." Landscape. No. 1:(20-21), Autumn 1951.

Crosby, Anthony. "Common Sources of Deteriorarion," Adobe Pracrical & Technical Aspects of Adobe Conservation. Edited by James W. Garrison and Elizabeth F.

-Ruffner, Heritage Foundation of Arizona, 1983.

Dethier, Jean. Down to Earth Adobe Architecture: an Old Idea. a New Future. New York, N.Y.: Facts in File Inc , 1983.

Garrison, James W. Adobe Practical & Technical Aspects of Adobe Conservation. Heritage Foundarion of Arizona, 1983.

Gibson, Arrell Morgan. The Santa Fe and Taos Colonies: Age of the Muses. 1900-1942. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

88

89

Gray, Virginia, Macrae, Alen & McCalI, Wayne. Mud Space And Spirit. Santa Barbara, Calif., 1976.

Henderson, Rose. " A primirive Basis for Modem Architecture," Architecture Record. 54(2):186-96, 1923.

Hopson, Rex C. Adobe: A Comprehensive Bibliographv. Santa Fe, N. M.: Lightning Tree Press, 1979.

Interview with Barbara Harmon, Lubbock, TX, November 14th, 1990.

lowa, Jerome. Ageless Adobe: History and Preservarion in Southwest Architecture. Santa Fe, N. M.: Sunstone Press, 1985.

Jackson, J. B. "Puehlo Architecture and Our Own." Landscape. No. 2:20-25, Winter 1953-54.

Lufkin, Agnesa Bumey. Domesric Architecture in Northeastem New Mexico Late Territorial Period: 1880-1912. Albuquerque, N. M.: The University of New Mexico, 1983.

—. "Thfí riay-WagnPT Honse- HnnH-Made Space." New Mexico Magazine. 7-8:10-18, 1978.

Lumpkins, WiUiam. Adobe: Past And Present. Santa Fe, N.M.: Museum of New Mexico, 1972.

—. La Casa Adobe. Santa Fe, N.M.: Ancient City Press, 1961.

—. Modem Spanish-Pueblo Homes. Santa Fe, N. M.: Santa Fe Publishing Co., 1946.

Meem, John Gaw. "Old Form for New Buildings," American Architect. 145(26,27): 10-21, 1934.

McHenry, Paul Graham. Adobe and Rammed Earth Building: Design and Construction. Tucson, Arizona : The University of Arizona Press, 1984.

—. Adobe. Built t Yourself. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, Revised Edition, 1985.

Motto, Sytha. Old Houses of New Mexico and the People Who Built Them. Albuquerque, N. M.: Calvin Hom Publisher Inc, 1972.

Newcomb, Rexford. The Spanish House For American: Its Design. Fumishing. and Garden. PhUadelphia: The Washington Square Press, 1926.

New Mexico Building Code: Constmcrion Industries Division. Santa Fe, N. M.: General Constmction Bureau, 1988.

O'Connor, John F. The Adobe Book. Santa Fe, N.M.: Ancient City Press, 1973.

90 PUIet, Michel L.R. "Pueblo House Design as a Response to the Arid-Zone Climate,"

Housing in Arid Lands: Design and Planing. Edited by Giedon Golany, New York: Halsted Press, 1980.

Rapoport, Amos. House From and Culture. Englewood Cliff, N.J.: Prenrice-Hall, 1969.

"Preservation of Historic Adobe Buildings," Preservarion Brief No. 5. Technical Preservation Services Division, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C: (U.S. GovemmentPrintingOffice 1978GPOStockNO. 024-016-00134-6).

Reeve, AgnesaLufkin. From Hacienda to Bungalow: Northem New Mexico Houses, 1850-1912. Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press,1988.

— & Cleaved, Alice Ann. New Mexico: Land of Manv Cultures. Boulder, Colorado: Pmett Publishing Company, 1969.

Riley, Robert B. "New Mexico Villages in a Future Landscape," Landscape. 18:3-12., Winter, 1969.

Romero, Orlando. "From the Ground up: New Mexico Architecture Molded by Landscape, Changing Times," New Mexico Magazine. No. 4: 43-46, 1987.

Santa Fe National Park Service, National Register of Historic Place Conrinuarion Sheet for "Camino del Monte Sol Historic Dismct," Santa Fe , N.M.: Unpublished Material, March 14th, 1988.

Secretarv of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitarion and Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Building. Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservarion, Heritage Conservatíon and Recrearion Service, U.S. Dept. of tíie Interior (36 CFR 68), Apnl 1981.

Seth, Sandra. AHobe: Homes and Interior of Taos. Santa Fe and Southwest. Stamford, Connecricut: Architecture Book PubUshing Company, 1988.

Sheppard, Carl D. Creator of the Santa Fe Stvle: Isaac Hamilton Rapp, Architect. Albuquerque, N. M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1988.

Smitíi, Edward W. AHohe Bricks in New Mexico. Socorro, N.M.: State of New Mexico, 1982.

— & Ausrin, George S. AHohe. PresseH-Farth. and Rammed-Earth Industry in New Mexico. Socorro, N. M.: State of New Mexico, 1989.

Spears, Beverley. American Adohes: Rural Houses of Northem New MexicQ. Albuquerque, N. M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.

Stead, Peter "Lesson in Traditional and Vemacular Architecture in Arid Zone," Housin^ in Arid Land: Design and Planning. Edited by Gideon Golany, New York: The Architecture Press, 1980, pp. 33-34.

Sturm, FredG. "Aesthetic of Southwest." Pueblo Stvle and Regional Architecture. Edited by Nicholas C. Markovich, New York, N.Y,: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.

Taylor, Anne. Southwestem Omamentarion & Design: the Architecture of John Gaw Meem. Santa Fe, N.M.: Sunstone Press, 1989.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. The Storv of New Mexico's Ancient Cnpital: Old Santa Fe. Chicago, lUinois: The Rio Grande Press Inc.,1963.

Van Dresser, Peter. "Root<;rork For a New Regionalism." Landscape. No. 10:11-14, Fall 1960.

Vierra, Carlos. "New Mexico Architecmre." Art and Archeologv. 7(1, 2):37-47, 1918.

Wilson, Chris. "New Mexico in the Tradition of Romantic Reacrion," Pnehlo Stvle and Regional Architecture. Edited by Nicholas C. Markovich, New York, N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.

Wilson,Web. "AU Ahnnt AHohfí," The Old House Joumal. No. 12:247-260,1982.

Warren, Nancy Hunter. New Mexico Stvle: A Source Book of Tradirional Architectural Details. Santa Fe, N.M.: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1987.

PERMISSION TO COPY

In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the

requirements fcr a master's degrec at Texas Tech Universlty, I agree

that the Library and my luajor (l<'partment shall make It freely avail-

able for research purposes. Permission to copy this theeis for

scholarly purposes may be granted by the Director of the Library or

my major professor. It is understood that any copying or publication

of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my

further written permission and that any user may be liable for copy-

right infringement.

Disagree (Perraission not granted) Agree (Permission granted)

Student's signature Stud^nt's^signature

Date Date