The Building of the University of New Mexico The First 100 Years by Van Dorn Hooker, FAIA The environmen t in which the young adult, at his most recepti ve and responsive stage of maturity, absorbs advanced education is certainly as influ ential as the teachers and books to which he is exposed. Indi vidual response and capacity not­ withstanding, it can be argued in the light of experience that the man or wo man who experiences daily association with good ar­ chitecture, sculpture, landscaping, and consciously ordered environmental design, must inevitably carry these associations in­ to later life. Th ese am eniti es should be an integral part of the educational plant. Today eighty percent of all people in this nation live in urban areas. If future generations are insensitive to f orm , order and delight in physical enviro nment, the consequences will be devastatin g to our culture. The first University of New Mexico building remodeled to Pueblo style & now named From the General Development Plan Hodgin Hall. Jesse Wh eelock, Archit ect John Carl Warnecke & Associates 1960 Biology Building addition, Loren Potter Wing, 1968 by Flatow, Moore, Bryan & Fair­ The Unive rsity of New Mexico, the Col­ burn, Architects lege of Agriculture and Mechanics (now ew Mexico Sta te University) and the School of Mines (now ew Mexico In­ stitute of Mining an d Techno logy) we re established by the Twenty- Eight h Ter­ rito rial Legislature on Feb ruary 28, 1889. The autho r of the bill was Bernard Rodey, a lawyer and freshman legislat or from Albuquerque, wh o was assisted by Judge John R. McFie of Las Cruces. The men carefull y orchestrated the political moves necessary for the bill's passage. It was a personal triumph for them since higher education was low on the priority list in a frontier territory with not one public high school. The act specified that the Territorial University of New Mexico be built in Ber­ nalill o County on donated land north of what is now Central Avenu e on high ground, which meant the top of the mesa. By August, 1889, twenty acres of land had been d o nated w hich now is the southwes tern pa rt of the camp us. The Boar d of Regents met for the first tim e on ove mber 13, 1889, and the initial order of business was authorizat ion for the Secretary to advertise for an ar chitect to design the University Building whic h is now known as Hodgin Hal l. Jesse M. Wh eelock of Albuq uerqu e was chosen as the ar chitect and the firm of Palladino and Digneo lat er became the general contractor. The building was a typical red br ick schoolhouse design with three stories, a steep pitched roof and a July-August 1989 / 9 enrollment over the next three decades, the University administration, realizing that this plan was not adequate, employed the firm of John Carl Warnecke and Associates in 1959 to do a development plan looking toward an enrollment of 25,000 with a medical school on the North Campus and the athletic complex on the South Campus. The resulting plan kept many of Holien's concepts, but created a loop road that would eventually remove all internal streets and much of the parking. On the recommendation of these planners, The Office of the University Architect was established in 1963. The College of Education buildings completed in the early sixties was the first break with the more traditional interpreta­ tion of the Pueblo style of architecture. Then followed a period of such growth that students referred to the campus as one big construction yard. It was fueled by federal funds and large state bond issues. Also from 1965 to 1975 the University Zimmerman Library, 1937, left, John Gaw Meem; architect; Ortega Hall, 1971, right; issued over thirty million dollars of its own designed by George Pearl of Ferguson, Stevens, Mallory & Pearl. Duck pond in bonds to finance dormitories, the basket­ foreground. ball arena, the bookstore, landscaping pro­ jects and utilities . partial basement. It was completed in the designed to integrate with the Chemistry Planning for the School of Medicine summer of 1892 and in 1894 the first class Building and provide a transition back to and, subsequently, the North Campus of six students received baccalaureate the Pueblo Revival style. In 1927 four began around 1960 and culminated in the degrees. buildings designed by Gaastra, Gladding completion of the Basic Medical Sciences Dr. William George Tight, who assum­ and Johnson in the indigenous style return­ Building in 1966. The Cancer Research ed office as the third president of the ed to the campus the idiom established by and Treatment Center, the building for university in 1901, became a keen student Tight and Cristy. the Colleges of Nursing and Pharmacy, the of Pueblo architecture during his travels in In 1934 Santa Fe architect John Gaw Health Sciences Learning Resource Center New Mexico, and it was at his recommen­ Meem was employed to design several and other related buildings soon followed dation that the style be adapted for campus buildings funded with Federal assistance funded almost entirely with federal buildings. While Tight was in office (1901­ including the Library (Zimmerman), an money. In the late sixties, it was decided to 1909) several buildings designed by ar­ administration- classroom building move the School of Law to the north of the chitect Edward B. Cristy were built in the (Scholes), a student union (now An­ medical complex. Planning was hard Pueblo Revival style and the main thropology) , a heating plant and others . pressed to keep up with the rapid building, now Hodgin Hall, was remod­ Until he retired in 1959, Meern's firm was developments. A plan completed in 1977 eled with a flat roof and stucco over the responsible for the design of most of the by Howard Haaken, a medical facilities brick walls. Tight's interest in the physical buildings constructed on the campus. planning consultant is the latest. aspects of the campus were reflected in the By 1959 enrollment had reached an all After the Warnecke Plan was accepted, first efforts at campus planning in the 1908 time high of 7,284 students. During the Garrett Eckbo with the firm of Eckbo, plan. post World War II burst of growth, Dean and Williams, was employed to During the next administration the few twenty-seven ad ditional permanent carry the pla n for the Central Campus a structures built were done in such a man­ buildings were constructed and fourteen step fur ther with a landscape plan. The ner as to disregard the style of architecture temporary structures were in use. Like plan he presented in 1963 has been the that Tight had introduced. When David most other state universities, the University guide of all subsequent landscape develop­ Ross Boyd became president in 1912, he of New Mexico had become a complex in­ ment. took steps to return to Tight's style and stitution with a variety of functions in­ plan. Wal ter Burley Griffin known for his cluding instruction, research, public ser­ Land was acquired through the years for design of Canberra, Australia, and his vice programs and student activities and what is now called the South Campus and partner, Francis Barry Byrne, both services. The physical plant reflected this in the late fifties plans were made to students of Frank Lloyd Wright, were complexity of functions. relocate the Football Stadium from the hired to do a science building and a cam­ In the early fifties Edward Holien of the Central Campus to where it is now pus plan . The plan envisioned buildings firm of Meem, Holien and Buckley, pro­ located. In 1966, it was joined by the built around courtyards with collonades duced a master plan for the campus which Basketball Arena (The Pit) and later other connecting them and designed in a style envisioned a total enrollment of 15,000. facilities and now a research park is being reminiscent of Mayan architecture in The plan grouped buildings by academic developed nearby. vogue at that time . The Chemistry relationships, made the library central to At this time, the University of New Building constructed in 1916 was the only the campus, and placed the athletic fields, Mexico has over six million square feet of result of that planning. gymnasium, and dormitories on the space on the three campuses , 24,000 The old Library (now Art Annex) and eastern edge of the campus. Streets con­ students and 10,000 employees. Approx­ Sara Raynolds Hall (recently renovated) tinued to bisect the campus. imately 1,500 visit the campus each day. constructed in the early twenties were Faced with the impending surge of Because of careful attention to the 10 / July-August 1989 of new buildings and additions to build ings so that the spirit of the Pueblo motif is adhered to by massing, color, materials and, most of all, human scale and overall environment. Many of the early buildings which give historical perspective to the central campus have been restored. The University of New Mexico has received over thirty awards from many sources for the design of buildings, landscaping, and historic preservation. Individuals have also been honored for their participation in the campus development. V.B. Price summed it up when he wrote: "Although it has undergone constant growth and often massive change throughout most of its years, UNM's cen­ tral campus remains fundamentally true to itself. It is what it has always been: a uni­ que environment that is architecturally in harmony with the spirit of the place in which it exists.