Unique Experiences

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John Gaw Meem Architectural Tour of UNM with the Audra Bellmore, Curator of Architecture, Center for Southwest Research for you and three guests. PLUS The new John Gaw Meem book hot off the UNM Press by 2003 New Mexico Heritage Preservation award winner and Professor of Architecture, Kate Wingert-Playdon.

John Gaw Meem was the Official Architect of the University from 1933 until his retirement and had a tremendous impact on the built environment of the main campus. He designed several buildings around UNM main campus as well including Zimmerman Library, Scholes and Mitchell Halls and the Alumni Chapel.

If you are looking for primary source materials about architecture in New Mexico, the John Gaw Meem Archives of Southwestern Architecture in the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico is the place to go. The Meem Archives collects materials related to the history and development of the built environment in New Mexico and the Southwest region. Materials include original drawings, blueprints, manuscript collections, architectural office job files, photographs, slides, and models.

John Gaw Meem, a young banker from New York, traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico, seeking a cure for tuberculosis at Sunmount Sanatorium. While at Sunmount, Meem developed an appreciation for the New Mexico landscape and its historic Spanish Pueblo architectuure. Like many other Sunmount residents, Meem decided to stay in New Mexico.  After studying at the Desigh Atelier in Denver, Meem opened up his first architectural office on the grounds of Sunmount in 1924.  Soon, Meem became the main popularizer of the new Spanish Pueblo Revival Style, still the dominant style in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.  Meems finely wrought Spanish Pueblo residences, educational and public buildings highly influenced a generation of architects, builders and preservationists.

About John Gaw Meem at Acoma: Built by Spanish Franciscan missionaries in the seventeenth century, the magnificent mission church at Acoma Pueblo in west-central New Mexico is the oldest and largest intact adobe structure in North America. But in the 1920s, in danger of becoming a ruin, the building was restored in a cooperative effort among Acoma Pueblo, which owned the structure, and other interested parties. Kate Wingert-Playdon's narrative of the restoration and the process behind it is the only detailed account of this milestone example of historic preservation, in which New Mexico's most famous architect, John Gaw Meem, played a major role.

Item Special Note

Available September 2013-May 15, 2014 at a mutually agreeable date.

$5 per shipping address for all gift certificates and tickets unless the bidder chooses pick up options listed in your winning bid confirmation at the close of the auction. This is to cover priority mail and delivery confirmation.