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SOUTHWEST INSPIRATION | Architectural Trails
A people’s history can best be understood through the way they have lived over time and the American Southwest is one of the most interesting and diverse places to do this. This region is a crossroads of many cultures, beliefs and traditions. Here one can see among the ancient cliff dwellings of the Native Americans a continuity with the buildings that they erect today on their ancestral lands. Other historic structures include buildings constructed by the Spanish and the Americans from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, incorporating indigenous, European and American elements.
There are also many stunning examples of contemporary architecture that reflect this rich vernacular history, as well as the current concerns of sustainability in a desert landscape. This journey through Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado includes visits to Indian ruins and pueblos, historic Spanish and American sites, and modern buildings.
Ideas of Places to Visit
All itineraries are designed to respond to the travelers' desires and interests. This journey will speak to you through the language of architecture and its protagonists.
Architectural Trail
Architectures between traditions, cultural fusion and globalization in the cultures of the Southwest - 3 weeks
Some highlighted areas within this region: Phoenix, Scottsdale, Grand Canyon, Winslow, Tucson, Holbrook, Petrified Forest, Canyon de Chelly, Chaco Canyon, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Raton and Denver. (*)
The following themes are part of the tour that tells and demonstrates the evolution of architecture in the Southwest and the diversified life styles of its inhabitants over thousands of years:
The Native evolution
This era began over 10,000 years ago when the Old People (Anasazi) were hunting mammoth and then bison; occupying their initial dwellings in steep rock wall canyons up to their disappearance and reappearance in remote villages with five story high hand built buildings; to the dark centuries which followed the Spanish conquest from the south and the American expansion from the east to today's modern life.
Mission churches
Mission churches are the emblematic evidence of the Spanish influence on architecture and culture in the Native lands ofthe Southwest, following the arrival in the XVI century of the first Europeans in America.
The folklore of Route 66
America's Mother Road, established on November 11 1926, is represented by the people that travel on it, that run the convenience stores and souvenir shops, along this modern trail, refurbish abandoned or forgotten buildings, turning them into tearooms,B&B's or antique havens. Most buildings have now become their own legends.
Places of exchange of goods and cultures.
Trading posts, often located in the middle of nowhere, were initially important meeting points between Native people seeking goods for everyday life and traders collecting Native artifacts, as well as often functioning as pawn shops. Over the years they became a unique source for art dealers from far away places in search of Native arts and crafts to cater to an increasingly art hungry society. In addition,they became a major influence on Native patterns and designs to please the tourists of the 19 th century.
Stereotypes of the Wild West
With the romance of the cowboys' life, the hardship of the mining industry, the arrival of the pioneers with their dreams, the legends of the famous and the notorious through settlements, ranches, bunkhouses, saloons, bordellos, mines, ghost towns, the vintage architecture of theaters and cinemas -often known as “nickelodeons”, and the military forts.
Tourism and the Railroad.
These movements changed the Southwest forever, creating new demands on the hospitality industry: both places to be seen and places to live in. The two eminent protagonists of this cultural and architectural evolution were: Fred Harvey, who introduced modern hospitality, through a network of hotels and restaurants along the railroad lines, based on a high standard for delivering superior quality, which today remains an example for contemporary tourist enterprises. The other one was an incrediblewoman, Mary Coulter, who created in the early 1900's a tourist style which is known as the “National Park Rustic Style”, inspired by the local Native designs and architecture.
Santa Fe Style
This "look and identity" inspired by the unique quality of the place and natural environment, is a fusion of adobe buildings, a celebration of the Native and Hispanic traditions mixed with the eclectic nature of the Anglo and cowboy adventurers. This vernacular style of Santa Fe is still evolving today adding new contemporary lines and features.
Looking forward.
The desert is not only a place to discover the historical aspects of the epic conquest of this once new frontier, but from Phoenix to Santa Fe it is quickly becoming known as a land of innovative buildings, starting with Frank Lloyd Wright to the cutting edge forms and concepts of visionary architects of the Third Millennium. Today, a new key element is making its presence known, Green Building, which is not only meant to blend with the natural environment, but is specifically designed not to deplete or pollute the areas' natural resources.
* In order to fully understand the area, to access the places otherwise not easily discovered and reached, and to meet the most interesting people one must go beyond reading the tourist brochures by calling upon the expertise of Seven Directions.
