Deeply lived-in plazas

Edited by Chris Wilson and Stefanos Polyzoides
Photographs by Miguel Gandert
Trinity University Press, 2011, 338 pp. $45 hardcover

“How was your day?” I ask my visitor, who splits his time between Maui and Shanghai. “It was amazing,” he says. “I never experienced any place like the Santa Fe plaza, and yet I felt at home. Are there any other places like it in New Mexico?”

“Sure,” I say, “dozens of them. On your way to Arizona, eat lunch in Albuquerque’s Old Town Plaza, then drive an hour west to Acoma Pueblo’s 1,000-year old mesa, where all the homes are sited around the plaza 5 degrees east of due south, perfect for passive solar gain. Just before you leave the Land of Enchantment, stop in Gallup to check out the brand-new courthouse square, featuring a round space in its middle ideal for dancing and selling crafts.”

Such is life in New Mexico, home to dozens of compelling public spaces. The Plazas of New Mexico, a book ten years in creation on a topic evolving for ten centuries, unearths why plazas work so well you feel at home from the first time you arrive, and why you have such a keen sense of longing when you leave. The book will help share why we Santafesinos adore our plaza and appreciate the dozens of other plazas, Native American gathering places, and courthouse squares adorning the Land of Enchantment.

Beyond the brilliant insights by co-editors Chris Wilson and Stefanos Polyzoides, three writers who grew up steeped in the plaza milieu contribute cogent essays. The Native American sense of space, says Santa Clara Pueblan Rina Swentzell, is manifest in a larger natural context: “People prayed, danced, talked, slept, and ate with the outdoor community space. All the while, the swirling energies contained in that space reminded them to be respectful of the clouds, mountains, plants, and other animals…. Pueblo community space encourages humans to see themselves as one with the forces in the sky and earth and discourage egoism.”

Beyond the famous plazas in Taos, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, Don Ussner points out that many plazas in rural communities lack a government building, are void of shops, and mute their celebrations. The economic functionality of these plazas slowly was lost to other places, which caused the plazas to physically decline or disappear. Long-time residents, to gain livelihood, moved to cities, only to return home on weekends.

Some of the deepest conflicts form around differences in how locals want to deal with change. Conflict has paralyzed action, weakening plaza-inspired villages in the face of accelerating change. “Once plaza people expressed their pride by maintaining a beautifully intact plaza,” Ussner says. “Now some show their pride by resisting all efforts to maintain or restore it, thereby ensuring that it crumbles into dust….If the plaza is to survive people will have to work hard and reach across a deep divide to strike a balance between conflicting viewpoints, even as more plaza homes slowly slip toward ruin.”

The Taos Plaza and its fiesta, notes Sylvia Rodriguez, have coevolved “because they represent interactive, mutually reflective processes. The life of one depends on the life of the other,” she observes. The Taos Fiesta is the only time of year when there are more locals/Hispanics on the Plaza than tourists/Anglos. Each generation practices and experiences fiestas differently. “We are left with a physical structure that amounts to a shopping mall for tourists but, for Taosenos, survives purely as a ceremonial space and a space of memory.” Judging by the attached photo (four generations of Taosenas) of four generations of Taosenas at the Taos Plaza, which I shot this October, I was lucky to experience an exception to that generalization.

The Laws of the Indies, promulgated in 1572 by Spain’s King Philip II, set forth the design and use of the colonial plaza. Settlers and officials typically observed the spirit of the Laws without necessarily executing all the particulars, though they invariably carried out Law 110 — first establish a plaza — and Law 113: size it to accommodate horses used in fiesta celebrations. Indeed, community celebrations best manifest a plaza’s setting, from Los Matachine dances to La Posada at Christmas, from 4th of July corn boils and car shows to Feast Days. The year 2012 will bring our 300th Santa Fe Fiesta, the oldest continuously celebrated community event in what is now the US.

The late 19th-century phase of plaza design turned them more into parks that, like business blocks, reflected merchant optimism. They included, Wilson says, a “fountain, bandstand or monument, with symmetrically planted trees, and benches featured everyday social interactions while the open, continuous, grand plan easily accommodated large celebrations.” Plazas in Las Vegas, Mesilla, and Socorro joined those in larger communities in reflecting physical boosterism.

Says Polyzoides: “the urban rural transect — from the center of the plaza through the surrounding connected buildings to freestanding buildings, to the agricultural or natural landscape, can be as short as 3 blocks….Early settlers attempted to impose a strong vision of urbanity on this breathtakingly wild landscape.”

Courthouse squares sprang up in the 1880s on New Mexico’s eastern plains, anchoring the town grid pattern of settlement. They display an “emerging alliance between government and commerce…a decidedly male space” in contrast to female presence during workdays in Pueblo and Spanish plazas.

Wilson notes that New Mexico’s 12 courthouse squares are mostly used for 4th of July fests, pioneer days, and reunions.

Polyzoides declares: “New Mexico is home to more traditional, beautiful, and beloved plazas than any other US state... [Plazas give] the promise of community among diverse people free to associate and pursue their destiny in the Americas. They are the one special place where, however imperfectly, the constant needs of citizens for human contact, entertainment, culture, and commerce have been and are still being met.”

Polyzoides goes on to note the continually evolving nature of plazas. Instead of being considered snapshots “frozen in time, consumed and discarded for commercial gain, or venerated for the benefit of advertisers and tourists, they are living canvasses to be constantly engaged by the residents of the towns unfolding around them. As a set of special places, they are the very source of the identity of the proudest and most beautiful state in the country.”

Urban designer Chris Calott observes that with a large Hispanic population, Native American sovereignty, and a counterculturalism inspired by the 1960s, New Mexico against all odds is better positioned than most other places to revitalize existing public places and create new ones.

Revitalization plans for Monticello, Ohkay Omigeh Pueblo, and Dona Ana are transforming neglected places. And new spaces such as the aforementioned Gallup courthouse square and private plazas sprouting up around Santa Fe — including one at my cohousing community — offer new generations the opportunity to experience how special are deeply lived-in plazas.

The bulk of the book offers 22 profiles by Wilson and Naomi Sachs of the historical, cultural, and design factors inherent in public spaces in New Mexico communities. Jose Zelaya’s drawings will be of particular interest to New Urbanists, as they reveal each plaza’s uniqueness, and yet there is a plaza typology evidenced throughout these pages.

As the president would say, buy this book. Right away. Visit New Mexico’s incomparable plazas. Then go home and re-create a public space for your own community.

Ken Hughes chairs Santa Fe’s Planning Commission.