I’ve realized I geek out about architecture every time I visit another city. I think it comes from living in Santa Fe, which has a very distinct and unified style. Santa Fe is known for its architectural look, and a good chunk of it is required by law to look that way. I’m not sure the law actually applies to my side of town; everything in “central Santa Fe” is required to be built in pueblo revival style but I don’t think our neighborhood is central. It’s still dominated by pueblo revival and Spanish mission inspired buildings, though. Everything here has rounded corners and round wood beams sticking out of it (called vegas) and little stepped geometrical designs on it. And it’s mostly shades of brown and beige and cream colors, with the occasional restful light blue. I love all the earth tones and warm colors of the buildings here.

Our own house, and our entire neighborhood, is in pueblo revival style. We have fake vegas above our garage. Inside, our walls all have rounded corners and our archways feature blocky wooden “support beams.” When we were moving here, pretty much every housing option we saw was pueblo revival style.

I’m not a huge fan of it, actually. Maximalist that I am, I’m attracted to fussier stuff like art deco, beaux arts, and various Victorian styles. By comparison, pueblo revival is pretty plain and blunt. When you spread it over a whole city, though, I admit it’s a pretty amazing effect. It gives Santa Fe a unique, artistic feel and it looks really in harmony with the landscape around it. Especially since Santa Fe style doesn’t allow for buildings over four stories tall (or around that). When even your local fast food joint and doctor’s office looks like a historical landmark, you really start to notice architecture more.

New Mexico has some major down sides, including a chronic shortage of medical professionals, so we’ll probably retire to someplace with better healthcare access. I don’t think we’ll find a city as unique and perfectly attuned to its history and environment, though, and I’ll really miss that when we’re gone.