The Pueblo Revival or Spanish-Pueblo Revival architectural movement that produced La Fonda on the Plaza, Cristo Rey Church, the UNM Zimmerman Library, the Laboratory of Anthropology, and the entire visual identity of Santa Fe from the 1920s forward is the most documented American regional architectural style of the twentieth century. The literature that documents it is concentrated in a small number of canonical books published primarily by University of New Mexico Press and Museum of New Mexico Press across approximately 1974 through 2009, anchored by the scholarship of Bainbridge Bunting (Meem's principal academic biographer), Beatrice Chauvenet (Meem's preservation-activism biographer), Chris Wilson (the critical re-reader), and Marc Treib (the broader Spanish-architecture historian who places the NM tradition in continental context).
This page is the collecting reference for that literature as it surfaces through NMLP intake from estate libraries in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and the broader NM architecture and historic-preservation community. The books are concentrated in three donor demographics: Santa Fe arts-and-architecture-community estates (the deepest single concentration, often including hard-to-find first editions and the Old Santa Fe Today series), UNM-architecture-faculty estates, and historic-preservation activist estates (donors and former members of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation board, the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division advisory boards, and the various Santa Fe and Albuquerque neighborhood historic-district associations). The NMLP closed-signature-pools reference tracks the principal closed pools in this field: Meem himself (1894-1983), Bainbridge Bunting (1913-1981), Edgar Lee Hewett (1865-1946), William Penhallow Henderson (1877-1943), Mary Colter (1869-1958), William Lumpkins (1909-2000), and Beatrice Chauvenet.
Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
The three periods of Pueblo Revival architectural scholarship
Period one — the foundational era (1880s–1919)
The Pueblo Revival movement's intellectual roots lie in the late nineteenth-century ethnographic and archaeological work of Adolph Bandelier (the Pajarito Plateau and Frijoles Canyon archaeology), Edgar Lee Hewett (the founding director of the School of American Archaeology established 1907 in Santa Fe), Sylvanus Morley (the Maya archaeologist who joined Hewett's Santa Fe operation), and Charles Lummis (whose Land of Poco Tiempo 1893 popularized the Pueblo aesthetic for the late-Victorian Eastern readership). The first major built application of the new revival aesthetic was the 1917 Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, designed by Isaac Hamilton Rapp (1854-1933) and William Morris Rapp, modeled explicitly on Acoma Pueblo's San Esteban del Rey mission church and on the Franciscan mission church at Cochiti Pueblo. The Rapp-Brothers museum was the foundational built prototype that subsequent Pueblo Revival architecture worked from.
The 1912 Old Santa Fe Plan formalized the aesthetic into city-planning policy. Drafted by Hewett, Morley, Carlos Vierra (the artist-photographer), and others under the auspices of the Santa Fe City Planning Board, the plan recommended that all new central-Santa-Fe construction adopt the local Pueblo-Spanish vernacular vocabulary. The plan was advisory at adoption but set the design framework that subsequent municipal historic-district ordinances enforced. The 1912 plan is reproduced in multiple scholarly accounts and is the foundational text for understanding the deliberate construction of the Santa Fe Style.
Period two — the Santa Fe Style consolidation (1920s–1940s)
The 1920s through 1940s saw the consolidation of the Santa Fe Style into a comprehensive architectural language through the work of John Gaw Meem, William Penhallow Henderson, William Lumpkins (in his early career), T. Charles Gaastra, and the continuing Rapp practice. Meem arrived in Santa Fe in 1920 (for tuberculosis treatment at the Sunmount Sanatorium); after recovering and studying architecture in Denver he opened his Santa Fe practice in 1924 and became the dominant figure in the movement for the next thirty years.
The major Meem buildings of this period — the 1925 La Fonda renovation, the 1930 Laboratory of Anthropology, the 1936 UNM Zimmerman Library, the 1939–1940 Cristo Rey Church — constitute the canonical built catalog. The parallel work of William Penhallow Henderson (residential commissions, the 1937 Wheelwright Museum hogan-form building) and William Lumpkins (later resident architect at the Museum of New Mexico) extended the movement beyond Meem's office. The scholarship on this period is concentrated in Bunting's 1983 Meem biography and the broader documentary record of the Santa Fe institutional class that commissioned the buildings.
Period three — the mid-century institutional and the critical re-reading (1940s–present)
From the 1940s through the 1980s the Pueblo Revival movement consolidated into the institutional architectural language of New Mexico — the federal building program (federal courthouses, post offices, and military-installation facilities adopted modified Santa Fe Style elements), the continuing UNM campus expansion, the major institutional commissions (the Albuquerque Little Theatre WPA-funded 1936, the various state buildings designed by W.C. Kruger and others), and the residential market across northern New Mexico. The critical scholarship begins with Bunting's Of Earth and Timbers Made 1974 and culminates in Chris Wilson's The Myth of Santa Fe 1997 which reads the entire movement as a deliberate twentieth-century construction with substantial economic motive (the tourism industry) rather than as organic vernacular evolution. Contemporary scholarship at UNM (the J.B. Jackson Chair of Cultural Landscape Studies, the architecture school's research programs) and at SAR continues to extend the field.
The canonical figures
John Gaw Meem
1894–1983 · Santa Fe practice 1924–1956 · Closed signature pool
Born in Pelotas, Brazil, to American missionary parents. Virginia Military Institute and mining-engineering training. Contracted tuberculosis during World War I military service; arrived in Santa Fe 1920 for treatment at Sunmount Sanatorium and remained for the rest of his career. Architecture training in Denver; Santa Fe practice opened 1924. Designed or restored approximately 350 buildings across New Mexico over five decades. Retired 1956 but continued consulting on historic preservation until his 1983 death at 88. The principal figure of the movement; the buildings, the catalog, and the scholarship all converge on his work. Closed signature pool; his papers are at UNM CSWR. The principal biographical reference is Bainbridge Bunting's John Gaw Meem: Southwestern Architect (UNM Press 1983).
Bainbridge Bunting
1913–1981 · UNM professor of art history · Closed signature pool
The principal Meem scholar and the foundational figure of academic NM architectural history. UNM art history faculty for most of his career. Two major NM architecture books: Of Earth and Timbers Made: New Mexico Architecture (UNM Press 1974, the broader regional survey) and John Gaw Meem: Southwestern Architect (UNM Press 1983, the definitive Meem biography — manuscript completed before Bunting's 1981 death, edited and published posthumously). Both are foundational; first editions in fine condition with dust jackets are the collector targets. Bunting also published a series of earlier journal articles on Boston architectural history that are collected by Bostonian academic libraries but not relevant to the NM collecting market.
Edgar Lee Hewett
1865–1946 · Founding director School of American Archaeology and Museum of New Mexico · Closed signature pool
Not an architect, but the institutional figure who created the conditions for the Pueblo Revival movement. Founding director of the School of American Archaeology (established 1907 in Santa Fe, renamed School of American Research in 1917, renamed School for Advanced Research in 2007). Founding director of the Museum of New Mexico (1909). Principal architect of the 1912 Old Santa Fe Plan. The institutional power-broker who connected the Anglo arts community with the Hispano-Pueblo communities and built the museum-and-archaeology infrastructure that sustained the architectural movement. Hewett's Ancient Life in the American Southwest (1930 Bobbs-Merrill) and The Pueblo Indian World (1945 UNM Press, posthumous) are the principal biographical published works.
Isaac Hamilton Rapp and William Morris Rapp
Isaac 1854–1933 · William ?–? · Both closed pools
Trinidad CO and Santa Fe architects. Designed the Museum of Fine Arts (Santa Fe, 1917) — the foundational Santa Fe Style building, modeled on Acoma Pueblo's San Esteban del Rey mission church. Isaac Rapp's broader practice across the Colorado-NM border produced the early Pueblo Revival commercial buildings that established the regional vocabulary. The Rapp brothers are the foundational built figures of the movement; Meem and the subsequent generation built on the Rapp prototype.
William Penhallow Henderson
1877–1943 · Santa Fe painter and architect · Closed signature pool
Boston-trained painter who moved to Santa Fe in 1916 with his poet wife Alice Corbin Henderson (a founding editor of Poetry magazine). Henderson designed several major Santa Fe Style residences and the Wheelwright Museum's distinctive hogan-form building (1937, modeled on the Navajo hogan rather than the Pueblo room block). His painting career sometimes obscures his architectural contribution. Closed signature pool. The principal reference is Edna Robertson and Sarah Nestor's Artists of the Canyons and Caminos: Santa Fe, the Early Years (1976, revised 2006) which covers Henderson alongside the broader Santa Fe arts colony.
Mary Colter
1869–1958 · Architect Fred Harvey Company / AT&SF Railway · Closed signature pool
Parallel revival movement to Meem's, working primarily for the Fred Harvey Company at the Grand Canyon. Designed Hopi House (1905), Hermits Rest (1914), Lookout Studio (1914), Phantom Ranch (1922), the Watchtower at Desert View (1932), and the interiors of the El Tovar Hotel and Bright Angel Lodge. Her Bright Angel Lodge (1935) is the parallel canonical Pueblo Revival institutional building at the Grand Canyon. Colter operated independently of the Santa Fe institutional class and her work is sometimes treated separately, but the architectural vocabulary is closely related to Meem's. The principal Colter biography is Virginia Grattan's Mary Colter: Builder Upon the Red Earth (Northland Press 1980 first; revised editions).
William Lumpkins
1909–2000 · Santa Fe architect and painter · Closed signature pool
Member of the Transcendental Painting Group; major figure in twentieth-century Pueblo Revival residential design from the 1930s through the 1990s. Resident architect at the Museum of New Mexico for a period. Designed approximately 200 residential buildings across NM. His La Casa Adobe (1986) is a working-architect publication that has been widely used as a residential adobe-construction reference. Lumpkins is a closed pool; signed Lumpkins material is uncommon in the trade.
Chris Wilson
b. 1954 · UNM J.B. Jackson Chair of Cultural Landscape Studies
The critical re-reader. The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition (UNM Press 1997) argues that the Santa Fe Style as I know it today was largely a twentieth-century INVENTION assembled by Hewett, the Rapp Brothers, Meem, and the Santa Fe institutional class, with substantial economic motive from the tourism industry. The book reframes the celebratory Bunting-Chauvenet account and is now a standard text in American architectural-history programs. Wilson's subsequent work on Albuquerque architectural history (the Route 66 era, the broader regional cultural-landscape tradition) extends the field. Open signature pool; signed copies are available at academic events and command modest premiums.
Beverly Spears
Practicing architect and scholar
American Adobes: Rural Houses of Northern New Mexico (UNM Press 1986) documents the vernacular rural adobe architecture of northern NM that pre-dated and existed alongside the Santa Fe Style movement. Spears's work places the formal Pueblo Revival movement in the context of the actual Hispano-Pueblo vernacular tradition it referenced (and sometimes appropriated). The 1986 UNM Press first edition is the principal reference for the vernacular tradition.
Marc Treib
UC Berkeley professor of architecture, retired
Sanctuaries of Spanish New Mexico (UC Press 1993) is the comprehensive scholarly study of the Spanish-colonial-era mission churches and the post-Reconquista Hispano adobe churches of northern New Mexico — the actual historical buildings that the Pueblo Revival movement referenced in the early twentieth century. The book documents 65 churches with detailed plans, photographs, and historical context. The 1993 UC Press first edition with original dust jacket is the principal reference for the mission-church tradition. Co-distributed with SAR.
The canonical Meem buildings
La Fonda on the Plaza
Santa Fe Plaza, 1925 Meem renovation. The most-photographed Santa Fe Style hotel and the foundational commercial example. The original 1922 Rapp-Brothers hotel building was substantially expanded and stylistically reworked by Meem in 1925 and again across multiple subsequent renovations. The hotel was operated by Fred Harvey from 1925 to 1969 and was a central institutional space for the Santa Fe arts community.
Cristo Rey Church
Santa Fe, 1939–1940. The largest adobe structure in the United States. Commissioned by Archbishop Rudolph Gerken for the 400th anniversary of the Coronado expedition into NM (1540). Built using traditional adobe construction methods with community-labor participation; the building program revived traditional adobe techniques that had nearly disappeared by the 1930s. Meem's most monumental work and the most direct demonstration of the Pueblo Revival's claim to authentic continuity with the vernacular tradition.
Laboratory of Anthropology
Santa Fe, 1930. Founding home of the Laboratory of Anthropology, the research institution that merged with the Museum of New Mexico's anthropology collections to become the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC). Building still standing at 708 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe.
UNM Zimmerman Library and the broader UNM campus revival
Albuquerque, 1936–1938 principal phase. The Zimmerman Library 1936, Scholes Hall 1936, Mesa Vista Hall 1938, the Hodgin Hall renovation 1936, and the master plan that transformed UNM from a generic land-grant institution into the Pueblo Revival campus it remains today. Meem served as consulting architect to UNM from the early 1930s through the 1950s. The continuing UNM campus building program through the 1950s and 1960s (Ortega Hall, Bandelier Hall, others) was designed by subsequent architects working within Meem's master-plan vocabulary.
Cristo Rey High School and the institutional commissions
Santa Fe, ongoing through the 1930s and 1940s. Meem's broader institutional catalog includes the Albuquerque Public Library Main Branch (1925, later relocated), the Albuquerque Little Theatre (1936, WPA-funded, still standing on Park Avenue and operating as a community theater), Bishop's Lodge expansions, the Catron Building remodel on the Santa Fe Plaza, and dozens of residential commissions for wealthy Eastern patrons across northern NM ranching country.
The institutional canon
UNM Center for Southwest Research (Zimmerman Library, UNM main campus, Albuquerque) — holds the John Gaw Meem Papers, the principal archival source for any Meem scholarship. The Meem Papers include design drawings, project files, correspondence, and the photographic record of all the major commissions. CSWR is the address for any serious Meem research.
Historic Santa Fe Foundation (Santa Fe) — the institutional anchor for historic-property preservation. Publishes Old Santa Fe Today (originally 1966, revised editions through the present, fifth edition 2009 most recently) which catalogs the Santa Fe historic-district buildings with photographs, dates, and architects. Old Santa Fe Today is the principal field-guide reference for the Santa Fe Style buildings.
New Mexico Historic Preservation Division (Santa Fe, part of the NM Department of Cultural Affairs) — maintains the state historic-property register, publishes National Register nomination documents for Pueblo Revival properties, and operates the state preservation-tax-credit program that incentivizes preservation of Santa Fe Style buildings.
New Mexico Architectural Foundation — supports scholarship on NM architecture broadly through grants, exhibitions, and publication subsidies.
Museum of New Mexico — the institutional anchor for Santa Fe Style scholarship; Museum of New Mexico Press publishes the Chauvenet 1985 Meem preservation biography and the broader Santa Fe Style monograph catalog.
School for Advanced Research (SAR Press) — co-distributes Marc Treib's Sanctuaries of Spanish New Mexico and publishes the Indian Arts Research Center catalogs that include built-environment material on Pueblo and Hispano architecture.
Palace of the Governors / New Mexico History Museum — holds the institutional record of pre-1912 Santa Fe architecture and the photographic archive that documents the Pueblo Revival movement as it developed across the twentieth century. The Photo Archives are the principal visual reference for documenting individual buildings over time.
Found old books in an estate or attic? Text me a photo at 702-496-4214 and I'll tell you what I see.
Five identification problems for collectors
One. The Bunting Meem 1983 UNM Press first vs subsequent printings. John Gaw Meem: Southwestern Architect was published by UNM Press in 1983 in a single first printing; subsequent printings exist but are uncommon. The first printing is identifiable by the copyright page absence of subsequent-printing notation. Fine-condition first-printing copies with original dust jacket are the collector target.
Two. Old Santa Fe Today editions. The Historic Santa Fe Foundation's Old Santa Fe Today field guide has been published in five editions: 1966 first (Historic Santa Fe Foundation), 1972 revised (UNM Press), 1982 revised, 1991 revised, and 2009 fifth edition revised (Sunstone Press). Each edition documents the historic district at its date of publication and reflects subsequent demolition, renovation, and new construction. A serious collector wants multiple editions for the comparative historical record. The 1966 first is the collector target and trades meaningfully above subsequent editions.
Three. The Bunting Of Earth and Timbers Made 1974 first vs reprints. The 1974 UNM Press first edition with original dust jacket is the collector target. Multiple subsequent UNM Press printings exist; the 1974 first is identifiable by the copyright page and trades meaningfully above subsequent printings.
Four. Chris Wilson Myth of Santa Fe 1997 first vs softcover reissue. The 1997 UNM Press hardcover first edition with original dust jacket (the iconic Palace of the Governors cover photograph) is the collector target. UNM Press has issued multiple softcover and trade-paperback reissues since 1997; these are common in NM estate libraries and trade meaningfully below the first hardcover.
Five. Meem-related ephemera and signed material. Meem signed correspondence, sketches, and presentation drawings throughout his career; these surface occasionally in NM estate libraries from clients of his practice (the wealthy Eastern patrons who commissioned residential work in the 1930s and 1940s often retained Meem's presentation drawings and signed letters). Authenticated Meem signed material trades in the four-figure range at specialist dealers and is documented through the Meem Papers at UNM CSWR. Most "signed" Meem books in the trade are actually books inscribed by Bunting or Chauvenet about Meem rather than by Meem himself; the distinction is critical for pricing.
The collector market — three tiers
Tier 1 trophy items. Bainbridge Bunting John Gaw Meem: Southwestern Architect 1983 UNM Press first in fine condition with original dust jacket; Bunting Of Earth and Timbers Made 1974 UNM Press first in fine condition; Marc Treib Sanctuaries of Spanish New Mexico 1993 UC Press first in fine condition with dust jacket; signed Beverly Spears American Adobes 1986; the 1966 Historic Santa Fe Foundation first edition of Old Santa Fe Today; original Meem-signed correspondence or presentation material; the original 1912 Old Santa Fe Plan documents (institutionally held but occasionally surfacing in estate libraries). These trade in the mid three-figure range, with Meem-signed correspondence crossing into the four-figure range at specialist dealers.
Tier 2 collector targets. Chris Wilson Myth of Santa Fe 1997 UNM Press first hardcover; Beatrice Chauvenet John Gaw Meem: Pioneer in Historic Preservation 1985 Museum of New Mexico Press first; Spears American Adobes 1986 UNM Press first; the Edna Robertson and Sarah Nestor Artists of the Canyons and Caminos 1976 first or 2006 revised; the Virginia Grattan Mary Colter 1980 Northland Press first; William Lumpkins La Casa Adobe 1986; Hewett's Ancient Life in the American Southwest 1930 Bobbs-Merrill first. These trade in the low to mid three-figure range with first editions and signed copies commanding modest premiums.
Tier 3 working-library targets. Subsequent printings and softcover reissues of all the above; Old Santa Fe Today subsequent revised editions; the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division county survey publications; the Historic Santa Fe Foundation newsletter compilations; the SAR Press paperback monographs on individual Pueblo-Spanish architectural topics; the various coffee-table Santa Fe Style residential design books from the 1990s and 2000s. These trade in the upper two-figure to low three-figure range.
Critical context and contemporary reading
The Pueblo Revival movement has been substantially re-examined since approximately 1990, with Chris Wilson's Myth of Santa Fe 1997 as the central critical text. The contemporary reading frames the movement as a deliberate Anglo construction with substantial economic motive (the Santa Fe tourism industry, the regional real-estate development pattern) rather than as a transparent celebration of authentic vernacular continuity. The movement appropriated and reshaped Pueblo and Hispano architectural traditions for an Anglo institutional and residential market, in some cases displacing the actual Hispano communities whose adobe traditions the movement claimed to honor. The 1912 Old Santa Fe Plan, the Rapp Brothers museum, the Meem buildings, and the broader Santa Fe Style are now read alongside the actual Pueblo and Hispano vernacular record (documented in Beverly Spears American Adobes 1986 and Marc Treib Sanctuaries 1993) as well as the contemporary Pueblo and Hispano scholarship that addresses the appropriations involved.
A serious collector building a NM architecture library now requires both the celebratory canon (Bunting, Chauvenet, the Old Santa Fe Today series) and the critical re-reading (Wilson 1997 and subsequent work). Contemporary scholarship at UNM, SAR, and the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division continues to extend the field; the conversation is active.
The NMLP intake position
Pueblo Revival architecture books surface through NMLP intake regularly from three principal donor demographics. Santa Fe arts-and-architecture-community estates are the deepest concentration, often producing nearly-complete sets of the canonical references plus rarer items including signed Bunting and Chauvenet copies and Meem-related ephemera. Albuquerque UNM-architecture-faculty estates produce the academic core of the literature plus working-architect publications by Lumpkins and others. Historic-preservation-activist estates — donors and former board members of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division advisory boards, and the various neighborhood historic-district associations — produce both the canonical references and the institutional ephemera (newsletters, conference proceedings, working-group documents) that document the preservation movement itself.
Standard NMLP intake terms apply: any condition, any quantity, free statewide pickup, no minimum, no tax receipt (NMLP is for-profit). Tier 1 trophy material routes to SellBooksABQ for cash purchase or to specialist architectural-book dealers (Hennessey + Ingalls in Los Angeles is the major Southwest-specialty architectural-book dealer; ABAA members specializing in regional architecture and design). Tier 2 and Tier 3 material flows through the standard NMLP hand-sort and routing. Material with documented Meem-related provenance (presentation drawings, signed correspondence, named-collection bookplates from known Santa Fe architectural patrons) is archived through the open NMLP Donation Archive when regionally significant.
Cite This Guide
Eldred, J. (May 2026). Pueblo Revival Architecture Books — John Gaw Meem and the Santa Fe Style Canon. New Mexico Literacy Project.
https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/pueblo-revival-architecture-books-collecting
Content is original research by Josh Eldred. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cite with attribution.