APRIL, 2024
The La Luz del Oeste Foundation will be hosting a celebration for the community in recognition of La Luz being added to the National Registry of Historic Places. The celebration will take place on Saturday, April 13 from 3:00 - 5:00. Please write to [email protected] if you wish to attend. The staff from New Mexico Historic Preservation Division will be in attendance along with several people from Predock Studio and Christopher Mead, author of Roadcut, The Architecture of Antoine Predock. You can read Christopher's recent essay about La Luz's new national designation below.
The La Luz del Oeste Foundation will be hosting a celebration for the community in recognition of La Luz being added to the National Registry of Historic Places. The celebration will take place on Saturday, April 13 from 3:00 - 5:00. Please write to [email protected] if you wish to attend. The staff from New Mexico Historic Preservation Division will be in attendance along with several people from Predock Studio and Christopher Mead, author of Roadcut, The Architecture of Antoine Predock. You can read Christopher's recent essay about La Luz's new national designation below.
Christopher Mead
docomomo NEWSLETTER, March 2024
docomomo NEWSLETTER, March 2024
The Planned Community of La Luz is listed on
the National Register of Historic Places
In 1967, two young developers, Ray Graham III and Didier Raven, chose an equally young Antoine Predock to plan and design the residential community of La Luz (The Light) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Predock’s first independent commission received national acclaim for its skilled application of contemporary theories of urban planning and for its convincing synthesis of modern and regional forms of architecture. La Luz catapulted Predock to early fame and launched him on a career that took him from New Mexico and the American Southwest to projects around the world, from North America to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. In 2006, the American Institute of Architects awarded him its highest honor, the AIA Gold Medal, for having “asserted a personal and place-inspired vision of architecture with such passion that his buildings have been universally embraced.” In 2023, fifty years after its completion, La Luz was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a significant work of architecture and planning whose sensitivity to issues of place and community extended to the ethics of environmental and ecological sustainability.
In retrospect, the success of La Luz seems inevitable. But this was not the case when it was going up in 1968-1974. Only the optimism of youth explains the confidence with which the developers and the architect undertook this housing experiment on Albuquerque’s west side, across the Rio Grande and eight miles by car from the Downtown. Now densely built up with tract homes, shopping malls, and car dealerships, the area was mostly desert grassland in 1967, with little except cattle and fences between the node of commercial activity just off I-40 to the south and the village of Corrales another seven miles to the north. Sceptics scoffed at the notion that families might want to live in such an unconventional subdivision, so far outside the city.
La Luz is bordered to the west by Coors Boulevard and the West Mesa volcanic escarpment and slopes east to the floodplain of the Rio Grande bosque (woodlands) and the panoramic Sandia Mountains. Peripheral loop roads, screened by earthen berms, access street parking and garages. Paths lead to terraced arrays of townhouses. Sheltered to the west behind blank walls set against the afternoon sun and spring dust storms, the townhouses turn east to the morning light and views; their walled courtyards act as solar traps in winter yet temper the summer sun through roof overhangs. The townhouses are grouped in meandering clusters that follow the site’s natural contours and provide each unit with unobstructed views as the housing blocks step up and down a hillside. The blocks turn inward onto the greenswards, fountains, and pedestrian walkways that—along with tennis courts and a swimming pool—thread the site with skeins of public space. The community covers 24 hillside acres while overlooking another 46 acres of desert scrub, cactus, and grass that preserve a permanent open space and view shed to the Rio Grande bosque and the Sandia Mountains.
La Luz is bordered to the west by Coors Boulevard and the West Mesa volcanic escarpment and slopes east to the floodplain of the Rio Grande bosque (woodlands) and the panoramic Sandia Mountains. Peripheral loop roads, screened by earthen berms, access street parking and garages. Paths lead to terraced arrays of townhouses. Sheltered to the west behind blank walls set against the afternoon sun and spring dust storms, the townhouses turn east to the morning light and views; their walled courtyards act as solar traps in winter yet temper the summer sun through roof overhangs. The townhouses are grouped in meandering clusters that follow the site’s natural contours and provide each unit with unobstructed views as the housing blocks step up and down a hillside. The blocks turn inward onto the greenswards, fountains, and pedestrian walkways that—along with tennis courts and a swimming pool—thread the site with skeins of public space. The community covers 24 hillside acres while overlooking another 46 acres of desert scrub, cactus, and grass that preserve a permanent open space and view shed to the Rio Grande bosque and the Sandia Mountains.
Ninety-six townhouses had been built by 1974. Adobe construction merges with cast- concrete lintels and drainage canaletas (gutters), fired-brick floors, plate-glass windows, and milled-lumber ceilings. Walls of adobe brick 16 inches thick, made with clay dredged from the Rio Grande floodplain, provide thermal mass as they absorb and retain solar energy. The townhouses range from 1,400 to 2,200 square feet and organize into five plan types. These adjust the size, location, and topography of individual units to their common design elements: party walls between adjoining houses; larger courtyards to the east and a pocket entry courtyard to the west; living rooms with arched brick fireplaces and a window wall to the east courtyard; split-level floor plans that climb a half flight from the living room to an upper dining area and kitchen; a separate wing for bathrooms and bedrooms, either on the same floor in one-story townhouses or on an upper floor in two-story townhouses. The living rooms of differing widths have variously rectangular or trapezoidal plans, which pivot the view eastward within aligned housing blocks; depending upon the plan type, the fireplace shifts its position around the room. Garages are mostly detached but slip into basements beneath some of the larger units.
The area was zoned for single family residential (R-1) or agricultural (A-1) use. Neither allowed for the private streets, shared public spaces, and party-wall construction of La Luz, which required a municipal exemption for “special zoning” (SU-1). Predock spoke of the “hard-core environmentalism” that preoccupied him at the time and remembered how he compiled the site’s climatic, topographic, and geological data in a box of index cards. Treating La Luz as an experimental laboratory, he drew its master plan from four interlocking principles: first, the architecture would respond to its site, keeping as much of the land as possible in its native state, especially to the east; second, housing would be tightly clustered to the west along Coors Boulevard; third, automobile and pedestrian traffic would be segregated; and fourth, the community’s private and public spaces would be carefully coordinated.
The area was zoned for single family residential (R-1) or agricultural (A-1) use. Neither allowed for the private streets, shared public spaces, and party-wall construction of La Luz, which required a municipal exemption for “special zoning” (SU-1). Predock spoke of the “hard-core environmentalism” that preoccupied him at the time and remembered how he compiled the site’s climatic, topographic, and geological data in a box of index cards. Treating La Luz as an experimental laboratory, he drew its master plan from four interlocking principles: first, the architecture would respond to its site, keeping as much of the land as possible in its native state, especially to the east; second, housing would be tightly clustered to the west along Coors Boulevard; third, automobile and pedestrian traffic would be segregated; and fourth, the community’s private and public spaces would be carefully coordinated.
Serge Chermayeff and Christopher Alexander’s influential treatise, Community and Privacy: Toward a New Architecture of Humanism (1963), brought pattern language, environmental design, and sociology to bear on community planning, and it identified internalized private space and externalized public space as the complementary halves of any vibrant community. Their theoretical argument both paralleled and reinforced the contemporary New Town movement. Originating in Great Britain, the movement had received its first paradigmatic formulation in the United States with Radburn, New Jersey. Laid out in 1928 by the architects and planners, Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, and documented in Stein’s 1951 book, Toward New Towns for America, Radburn was premised on the automobile. But Radburn separates people from cars by clustering the houses into “superblocks” that are served at the back by access roads and garages. The houses themselves are “turned around” to face garden parks that form “the backbone of the neighborhood.”
In the 1960s, multiple “new towns” were being developed across the United States. Well-known examples include Irvine, California, begun in 1959 to a master plan by William Pereira for The Irvine Company; Reston, Virginia, begun in 1964 to a master plan by Conklin Rossant Architects for the developer Robert E. Simon; and Sea Ranch, California, begun in 1964 to designs by the architects Charles Moore, Joseph Esherick, William Turnbull Jr., and Donlyn Lyndon, in collaboration with the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. Like La Luz, the plan for Sea Ranch emphasized quality-of-life issues centered on a residential village with green spaces and a direct connection to nature. Predock spent 1964 interning in San Francisco with the architect and urbanist Gerald McCue, who was a colleague of the Sea Ranch architects at the University of California, Berkeley; that same year, Predock also got to know Halprin.
At La Luz, Predock grounded modern urbanism in New Mexico’s native Pueblos and Hispanic villages. The communal spaces of La Luz, and the stepped and rounded profiles of its townhouses, refer at once to Pueblo Bonito at Chaco, whose circular kivas intersect with rectangular room blocks around a ceremonial plaza; to Taos Pueblo, whose elongated North House rises from the concave bowl of its plaza into a stepped profile that echoes the sacred mountain beyond; to the placitas (small public squares), courtyard houses, and humble earth construction of Hispanic villages across northern New Mexico. Predock confessed to feeling like an interloper in this ancient landscape: “I’m this Gringo from nowhere, with Chaco culture out there dating from the eleventh century… and full-blooded descendants of those cultures around me. This, for me as an ‘American,’ carries a certain burden.”
John Morris Dixon, the editor of Progressive Architecture, hailed La Luz in 1974 as a welcome return to regionalism after decades of the placeless International Style. Dixon related Predock’s modernist yet regional architecture to efforts by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in New England, Paul Rudolph in Florida, William Wurster and Harwell Hamilton Harris in California, and Pietro Belluschi in Oregon to reconcile the technological imperatives of modern society with traditional qualities of place. Lewis Mumford had summarized the issue in 1947 with an essay for The New Yorker on the Bay Region Style of northern California, whose idiom of wooden houses heeded the local “terrain, the climate, the way of life.” Before the practice got its name, La Luz anticipated what Kenneth Frampton termed “critical regionalism” in architecture: a fidelity to “topography, context, climate, light and tectonic form” that could restore a coherent sense of place to our disoriented world by reintegrating the antithetical forces of industrial technology and cultural tradition.
Predock was designing La Luz when Vincent Scully was writing Pueblo: Mountain, Village, Dance (1975), his tribute to how Native Americans had lived in partnership with the American Southwest since prehistoric times. The Puebloan peoples, Scully wrote, “occupy a clear position in relation to the fundamental problem of human life: how to get along—which means in the end how to live and die—with the natural world and its laws.” Predock took up this challenge at La Luz, bringing his environmental ethic to bear on a work of modern planning and architecture that drew its primary lessons from the land and from the peoples who had inhabited this land for centuries.
In the 1960s, multiple “new towns” were being developed across the United States. Well-known examples include Irvine, California, begun in 1959 to a master plan by William Pereira for The Irvine Company; Reston, Virginia, begun in 1964 to a master plan by Conklin Rossant Architects for the developer Robert E. Simon; and Sea Ranch, California, begun in 1964 to designs by the architects Charles Moore, Joseph Esherick, William Turnbull Jr., and Donlyn Lyndon, in collaboration with the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. Like La Luz, the plan for Sea Ranch emphasized quality-of-life issues centered on a residential village with green spaces and a direct connection to nature. Predock spent 1964 interning in San Francisco with the architect and urbanist Gerald McCue, who was a colleague of the Sea Ranch architects at the University of California, Berkeley; that same year, Predock also got to know Halprin.
At La Luz, Predock grounded modern urbanism in New Mexico’s native Pueblos and Hispanic villages. The communal spaces of La Luz, and the stepped and rounded profiles of its townhouses, refer at once to Pueblo Bonito at Chaco, whose circular kivas intersect with rectangular room blocks around a ceremonial plaza; to Taos Pueblo, whose elongated North House rises from the concave bowl of its plaza into a stepped profile that echoes the sacred mountain beyond; to the placitas (small public squares), courtyard houses, and humble earth construction of Hispanic villages across northern New Mexico. Predock confessed to feeling like an interloper in this ancient landscape: “I’m this Gringo from nowhere, with Chaco culture out there dating from the eleventh century… and full-blooded descendants of those cultures around me. This, for me as an ‘American,’ carries a certain burden.”
John Morris Dixon, the editor of Progressive Architecture, hailed La Luz in 1974 as a welcome return to regionalism after decades of the placeless International Style. Dixon related Predock’s modernist yet regional architecture to efforts by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in New England, Paul Rudolph in Florida, William Wurster and Harwell Hamilton Harris in California, and Pietro Belluschi in Oregon to reconcile the technological imperatives of modern society with traditional qualities of place. Lewis Mumford had summarized the issue in 1947 with an essay for The New Yorker on the Bay Region Style of northern California, whose idiom of wooden houses heeded the local “terrain, the climate, the way of life.” Before the practice got its name, La Luz anticipated what Kenneth Frampton termed “critical regionalism” in architecture: a fidelity to “topography, context, climate, light and tectonic form” that could restore a coherent sense of place to our disoriented world by reintegrating the antithetical forces of industrial technology and cultural tradition.
Predock was designing La Luz when Vincent Scully was writing Pueblo: Mountain, Village, Dance (1975), his tribute to how Native Americans had lived in partnership with the American Southwest since prehistoric times. The Puebloan peoples, Scully wrote, “occupy a clear position in relation to the fundamental problem of human life: how to get along—which means in the end how to live and die—with the natural world and its laws.” Predock took up this challenge at La Luz, bringing his environmental ethic to bear on a work of modern planning and architecture that drew its primary lessons from the land and from the peoples who had inhabited this land for centuries.
about the author: |
Christopher Mead is a Regents’ Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico and a Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians. He has written widely on modern architecture and urbanism, including books on the American architects Robert Venturi, Bart Prince, and Antoine Predock, and the French architects Charles Garnier and Victor Baltard. His most recent book is a history of modern Japanese architecture after the bombing of Hiroshima.
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MARCH 2, 2024
It is with great sadness that we share the passing of La Luz's visionary architect Antoine Predock. Those who have had the privilege to live in La Luz know firsthand the magic instilled here by the young man who would become world-renowned with a body of work spanning the globe. His ability to "tune-in" to a place allowed him to create this townhouse community that is quintessentially site-specific and unlike any other. Many believe La Luz, his first major project, inspired his path. We are sharing several wonderful tributes below. The most comprehensive obituary was written by Christopher Mead, Emeritus Regents' Professor, University of New Mexico and Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians. Mead's tribute was written at the request of Predock himself with the cooperation of his family and office. Read it here.
It is with great sadness that we share the passing of La Luz's visionary architect Antoine Predock. Those who have had the privilege to live in La Luz know firsthand the magic instilled here by the young man who would become world-renowned with a body of work spanning the globe. His ability to "tune-in" to a place allowed him to create this townhouse community that is quintessentially site-specific and unlike any other. Many believe La Luz, his first major project, inspired his path. We are sharing several wonderful tributes below. The most comprehensive obituary was written by Christopher Mead, Emeritus Regents' Professor, University of New Mexico and Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians. Mead's tribute was written at the request of Predock himself with the cooperation of his family and office. Read it here.
Architect Antoine Predock Dies,
Leaving a Legacy Inspired by the American Southwest
The visionary designer referenced the terrain of his adopted home state of New Mexico in his work.
For Antoine Predock, New Mexico wasn’t just a place—it’s, "a force," he wrote in his treatise, "Desert Beginnings - Portable Regionalism." Predock, an architect whose works dot the globe but were rooted in the American Southwest, died at 87 on March 2, 2024. He was born in Missouri and relocated to New Mexico as a college student, and the Southwest’s geography and climate played an ongoing role in his design practice. Since the founding of his firm in the late 1960s, Predock created work that connected to the high desert through its use of materials, light, and landscape.
Predock’s earliest works in New Mexico and Arizona speak to site terrain: The Zuber House in Paradise Valley, Arizona, is composed of two wings that branch outward in opposing directions, creating a connection between the nearby Camelback Mountain and the city of Scottsdale. The house is perhaps best known for a stark photograph of its outdoor walkway shaded by a patterned screen that casts an elaborate shadow; it became an icon for Predock’s later use of light and shadow. In the desert, shade is a type of luxury while also presenting an opportunity for play.
The Venice House—a beach home in Venice, California, completed in 1991—appears as a set of minimalist concrete boxes that use large-scale operable windows to create doorways to the outdoors. Predock cut a slit in the home’s thick concrete wall, creating a small window that sheds a sliver of light inside the house. It’s these types of subtle gestures, coupled with raw materials and textures, that ground these projects in place. He wrote about using clay in model-making, a technique that, while tedious, seemed to lead to the discovery of a building’s "soul."
In his later design work, Predock expanded beyond single-family residential architecture into civic, commercial, and educational buildings, including the Austin City Hall and its public plaza, where limestone, copper, and canopy screens come together in a terraced massing that looks like its own landscape.
These structures are, as Predock told the Young Architect podcast, embodiments of architectural practice, which he said is about, "linking episodic events, spatial events, that involve all the senses. Buildings aren’t one-liners… They’re not some seductive parametric thing that you cram stuff in to make them work… They are hard-fought processes that yield magic, if you’re lucky."
The Venice House—a beach home in Venice, California, completed in 1991—appears as a set of minimalist concrete boxes that use large-scale operable windows to create doorways to the outdoors. Predock cut a slit in the home’s thick concrete wall, creating a small window that sheds a sliver of light inside the house. It’s these types of subtle gestures, coupled with raw materials and textures, that ground these projects in place. He wrote about using clay in model-making, a technique that, while tedious, seemed to lead to the discovery of a building’s "soul."
In his later design work, Predock expanded beyond single-family residential architecture into civic, commercial, and educational buildings, including the Austin City Hall and its public plaza, where limestone, copper, and canopy screens come together in a terraced massing that looks like its own landscape.
These structures are, as Predock told the Young Architect podcast, embodiments of architectural practice, which he said is about, "linking episodic events, spatial events, that involve all the senses. Buildings aren’t one-liners… They’re not some seductive parametric thing that you cram stuff in to make them work… They are hard-fought processes that yield magic, if you’re lucky."
Antoine Predock, world-renowned architect, dies at 87.
Called New Mexico his spiritual home
By Adrian Gomez, Journal Arts Editor | March 4, 2024
Internationally-renowned architect Antoine Predock died this weekend, according to a family friend. He was 87.
Predock was born on June 24, 1936, in Lebanon, Missouri, though he often called himself an Albuquerque native. New Mexico has been my spiritual home, he told the Journal in 2019.
“(A) tiny percentage of my buildings are around New Mexico. There are so many more all around this country and all around the world,” Predock wrote on Feb. 2, to the Journal, when he again said: “New Mexico has been my spiritual home for 70 years and it is everything to me but I don’t like to be thought of as a local architect.”
He began his higher education at the University of Missouri in Engineering and then the University of New Mexico. He later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Columbia University.
Predock is recognized around the world with his innovative structures. He is also remembered as an avid motorcyclist.
He was at the helm of the La Luz del Oeste, which was designed between 1967 and 1974. The West Side townhouse development is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The property was added to the National Register on Oct. 27, 2023.
Spanning 24 acres off Coors Boulevard on the banks of the Rio Grande, La Luz del Oeste weaves together blocks of townhouses with tennis courts, fountains, a pool, paths, and public spaces, creating a cohesive development that emphasizes pedestrian access.
Predock’s development embraces nature and follows the natural contours of the land, with townhouse blocks nestled into the hillside. The development features sweeping views of the riverside Bosque and the Sandia Mountains.
Predock was born on June 24, 1936, in Lebanon, Missouri, though he often called himself an Albuquerque native. New Mexico has been my spiritual home, he told the Journal in 2019.
“(A) tiny percentage of my buildings are around New Mexico. There are so many more all around this country and all around the world,” Predock wrote on Feb. 2, to the Journal, when he again said: “New Mexico has been my spiritual home for 70 years and it is everything to me but I don’t like to be thought of as a local architect.”
He began his higher education at the University of Missouri in Engineering and then the University of New Mexico. He later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Columbia University.
Predock is recognized around the world with his innovative structures. He is also remembered as an avid motorcyclist.
He was at the helm of the La Luz del Oeste, which was designed between 1967 and 1974. The West Side townhouse development is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The property was added to the National Register on Oct. 27, 2023.
Spanning 24 acres off Coors Boulevard on the banks of the Rio Grande, La Luz del Oeste weaves together blocks of townhouses with tennis courts, fountains, a pool, paths, and public spaces, creating a cohesive development that emphasizes pedestrian access.
Predock’s development embraces nature and follows the natural contours of the land, with townhouse blocks nestled into the hillside. The development features sweeping views of the riverside Bosque and the Sandia Mountains.
Predock explained about the project,
“The concept of La Luz involves a basic attitude toward the land:
An urban environment and large open natural areas should exist together
— especially in New Mexico.”
“The concept of La Luz involves a basic attitude toward the land:
An urban environment and large open natural areas should exist together
— especially in New Mexico.”
Predock’s vision is also seen in the University of New Mexico School of Architecture, as well as the Albuquerque Museum, Rio Grande Nature Center and The Spencer Theater in Alto and Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos.
Outside of New Mexico, Predock designed Petco Park in San Diego, Austin City Hall in Austin, Texas, National Palace Museum Southern Branch in Southern Taiwan and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Predock and his team were spearheading the design for the city-planned Albuquerque Rail Trail, which will have a modern and artistic pathway that reflects the culture and history of the Land of Enchantment.
The Rail Trail is a 7- to 8-mile multi-use trail that will connect key destinations in the greater Downtown area.
When the city of Albuquerque began to conceptualize the trail, they chose Predock because he was someone who could integrate the unique essence, beauty, and history of Albuquerque in the trail through distinct zones.
Predock described these zones as “auras.” Each aura celebrates the culture and history of that area. The auras contain plazitas along the path that serve as access points and gathering spots for activity and community. Each plazita will have a digital explanation of the zone featuring music, people, foods, and the broader “story of us.”
“Beginning with Enchantment Plaza and culminating with that auspicious American crossroads moment at Central Crossing where US Route 66 was joined by the railroad, the Rail Trail reveals layers of the Land of Enchantment,” Predock explained about the project. “The intense polychrome graphics on the trail’s surface at each stop along the eight-mile circle tell the story of the neighborhoods, and of Albuquerque, summing up the Land of Enchantment.”
His firm has headquarters in Taiwan, California and New Mexico. Predock wanted his legacy to have a heavy presence in New Mexico, which is why in 2017, the UNM School of Architecture + Planning (SA+P) began to create the Predock Center for Design and Research in Predock’s former residence and professional center Downtown, which includes design studio, workshop and gallery spaces.
The University Libraries’ Center for Southwest Research received his two- and three-dimensional archives; some will be displayed on a rotating basis at the Predock Center.
Neither Predock nor his wife, sculptor and UNM professor Constance DeJong, are native New Mexicans, but they are long time residents. They chose to make these gifts based on their deep connections here. Wind, weather, light, geography and history shape every project Predock undertakes.
“Everything I learned here taught me how to pay attention to what I call site specificity,” Predock said when he gave UNM the gifts. “New Mexico taught me how to be an architect.”
Predock also had two sons.
DECEMBER, 2023
Getting on the National Registry has long been talked about by residents of La Luz and was therefore one of the first goals the Foundation set at their formation. It took two years and five drafts working with the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division (NMHPD) at the Department of Cultural Affairs to complete a successful application for nomination to the National Registry. This was a feat for several reasons – it is unusual for a work of modern architecture to be nominated and more so for a development of clustered housing. It is also unique for buildings designed by a living architect to be on the registry, let alone an architect who is still practicing. Taking all of this into consideration, our final application was nominated with great enthusiasm and endorsement by the NMHPD and was added to the National Register on October 27, 2023. See their December press release below, or read it here.
Getting on the National Registry has long been talked about by residents of La Luz and was therefore one of the first goals the Foundation set at their formation. It took two years and five drafts working with the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division (NMHPD) at the Department of Cultural Affairs to complete a successful application for nomination to the National Registry. This was a feat for several reasons – it is unusual for a work of modern architecture to be nominated and more so for a development of clustered housing. It is also unique for buildings designed by a living architect to be on the registry, let alone an architect who is still practicing. Taking all of this into consideration, our final application was nominated with great enthusiasm and endorsement by the NMHPD and was added to the National Register on October 27, 2023. See their December press release below, or read it here.
Your home is history! Landmark housing development on Albuquerque’s West Side listed in National Register of Historic Places
Santa Fe, NM – The New Mexico Historic Preservation Division (NMHPD) is proud to announce that a one-of-a-kind planned community on Albuquerque’s West Side has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
La Luz del Oeste, a townhouse development planned and developed by internationally renowned architect and New Mexico resident Antoine Predock between 1967 and 1974, was recommended to the Cultural Properties Review Commission for consideration by NMHPD and the La Luz Landowners Association in July. The property was added to the National Register on Oct. 27. The nomination recognizes La Luz del Oeste as worthy of historic preservation because it stands as an excellent example of planning during the New Town movement, while taking a unique approach to incorporating its surrounding landscape.
“New Mexico’s architectural heritage is one of the nation’s most unique, and properties like La Luz del Oeste exemplify that history,” said New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs Cabinet Secretary Debra Garcia y Griego. “We’re proud of NMHPD for helping ensure that this culturally significant property is protected for future generations.”
“Not only is La Luz del Oeste’s architecture and use of nature remarkable, but it also stands out as one of Albuquerque’s earliest examples of affordable middle-income housing,” said State Historic Preservation Officer Jeff Pappas. “This was a development designed to meet the needs of a growing city, while providing an alternative to post-war suburban growth.”
Spanning 24 acres off Coors Boulevard on the banks of the Rio Grande, La Luz del Oeste weaves together blocks of townhouses with tennis courts, fountains, a pool, paths, and public spaces, creating a cohesive development that emphasizes pedestrian access. The development embraces nature and follows the natural contours of the land, with townhouse blocks nestled into the hillside. The development features sweeping views of the riverside Bosque and the Sandia Mountains. Predock explained, “The concept of La Luz involves a basic attitude toward the land: An urban environment and large open natural areas should exist together—especially in New Mexico.”
For his work on La Luz and other signature projects across the American West, Predock has received numerous awards, including the AIA Gold Metal 2006, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award, the Rome Prize, and the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize. To learn more about the architect’s life and work, visit predock.com.
For all its beauty, La Luz del Oeste was also designed to meet the needs created by Albuquerque’s post-war growth, becoming one of the city’s first multifamily developments aimed at middle-income buyers. Early units that came on the market during the late-1960’s ranged from $29,000 to $40,000. The original Arco Street townhouses offer floor plans and sufficient space for families with children. Subsequent single-story Berm Street units featured floor plans that were ideal for couples or singles.
La Luz retains much of the design integrity that made it a unique space when it was completed nearly 50 years ago. The blocks of townhouses retain most of the building materials adobe, concrete, stucco, and glass from when they were first completed. And the network of pathways and green spaces remain largely unaltered. The result of the integrity at La Luz is that the complex maintains the feeling of a late 20th century residential development.
To learn more about this landmark housing development and its path to the National Register, visit nmhistoricpreservation.org.
About the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division: NMHPD manages, oversees, and coordinates historic preservation activities across the state. The division educates the public about historic preservation and protects thousands of historic and archaeological sites in New Mexico. If you have ever visited an archaeological site, stopped on the side of the road to read a historic marker, or appreciated a well-maintained historic building in your community, you have likely engaged with the work of the NMHPD.
La Luz del Oeste, a townhouse development planned and developed by internationally renowned architect and New Mexico resident Antoine Predock between 1967 and 1974, was recommended to the Cultural Properties Review Commission for consideration by NMHPD and the La Luz Landowners Association in July. The property was added to the National Register on Oct. 27. The nomination recognizes La Luz del Oeste as worthy of historic preservation because it stands as an excellent example of planning during the New Town movement, while taking a unique approach to incorporating its surrounding landscape.
“New Mexico’s architectural heritage is one of the nation’s most unique, and properties like La Luz del Oeste exemplify that history,” said New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs Cabinet Secretary Debra Garcia y Griego. “We’re proud of NMHPD for helping ensure that this culturally significant property is protected for future generations.”
“Not only is La Luz del Oeste’s architecture and use of nature remarkable, but it also stands out as one of Albuquerque’s earliest examples of affordable middle-income housing,” said State Historic Preservation Officer Jeff Pappas. “This was a development designed to meet the needs of a growing city, while providing an alternative to post-war suburban growth.”
Spanning 24 acres off Coors Boulevard on the banks of the Rio Grande, La Luz del Oeste weaves together blocks of townhouses with tennis courts, fountains, a pool, paths, and public spaces, creating a cohesive development that emphasizes pedestrian access. The development embraces nature and follows the natural contours of the land, with townhouse blocks nestled into the hillside. The development features sweeping views of the riverside Bosque and the Sandia Mountains. Predock explained, “The concept of La Luz involves a basic attitude toward the land: An urban environment and large open natural areas should exist together—especially in New Mexico.”
For his work on La Luz and other signature projects across the American West, Predock has received numerous awards, including the AIA Gold Metal 2006, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award, the Rome Prize, and the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize. To learn more about the architect’s life and work, visit predock.com.
For all its beauty, La Luz del Oeste was also designed to meet the needs created by Albuquerque’s post-war growth, becoming one of the city’s first multifamily developments aimed at middle-income buyers. Early units that came on the market during the late-1960’s ranged from $29,000 to $40,000. The original Arco Street townhouses offer floor plans and sufficient space for families with children. Subsequent single-story Berm Street units featured floor plans that were ideal for couples or singles.
La Luz retains much of the design integrity that made it a unique space when it was completed nearly 50 years ago. The blocks of townhouses retain most of the building materials adobe, concrete, stucco, and glass from when they were first completed. And the network of pathways and green spaces remain largely unaltered. The result of the integrity at La Luz is that the complex maintains the feeling of a late 20th century residential development.
To learn more about this landmark housing development and its path to the National Register, visit nmhistoricpreservation.org.
About the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division: NMHPD manages, oversees, and coordinates historic preservation activities across the state. The division educates the public about historic preservation and protects thousands of historic and archaeological sites in New Mexico. If you have ever visited an archaeological site, stopped on the side of the road to read a historic marker, or appreciated a well-maintained historic building in your community, you have likely engaged with the work of the NMHPD.
Why is this important? Hear from the National Cultural Resource Department...
Mayor Keller declares June 24 Antoine Predock Day
Albuquerque, NM | By Rachel Witt | June 25, 2021
In a surprise announcement, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller declared June 24, 2021 “Antoine Predock Day” – honoring the work of internationally acclaimed architect, Antoine Predock. The declaration came during an event held by the UNM School of Architecture and Planning celebrating Predock’s 85th birthday.
Antoine PredockPredock’s legacy at UNM began more than 60 years ago, and he remains a prominent supporter of the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P). In 2017, SA+P announced the creation of the Predock Center for Design and Research in Predock’s former residence and professional center downtown. The birthday celebration was held at the site, which also displays his body of work and archives. The center, still undergoing some renovations, will eventually also house a design studio, workshop and gallery spaces.
“UNM is a place of discovery and intellectual growth, created in part by professionals in the community like Antoine Predock who ensure our students have stimulating pathways to development,” said UNM Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs James Holloway, who attended the event. “Academia does not exist in a bubble, and it’s always exciting to be able to showcase these moments of overlap between the community and the campus – the City of Albuquerque and The University of New Mexico.”
“A force in the world of architecture, we’re fortunate to have Antoine involved at the School and helping create meaningful opportunities for our students,” said Robert Alexander González, dean of the UNM School of Architecture and Planning. “The Predock Center continues to be a space where students can collaborate and seek inspiration, as does George Pearl Hall, which he designed and remains a fixture of the campus.”
Predock received the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award, and he his design portfolio includes museums, residences, hotels, offices, art and entertainment centers, sports, educational and research facilities around the world.
His projects on the UNM campus include the Cornell parking structure, the original UNM School of Law building and George Pearl Hall – which houses the SA+P. Predock also designed the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts in Ruidoso, the first phase of the West Side’s La Luz homes and the Rio Grande Nature Center.
Originally from Lebanon, Missouri, Predock has previously said he considers Albuquerque his spiritual home. The mayor’s declaration noted how Predock continues to contribute to the education and development of students and young architects, supporting the imagination and ingenuity of future generations.
Click here to hear from Antoine Predock in his own words, through a video produced previously by the UNM Foundation.
“UNM is a place of discovery and intellectual growth, created in part by professionals in the community like Antoine Predock who ensure our students have stimulating pathways to development,” said UNM Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs James Holloway, who attended the event. “Academia does not exist in a bubble, and it’s always exciting to be able to showcase these moments of overlap between the community and the campus – the City of Albuquerque and The University of New Mexico.”
“A force in the world of architecture, we’re fortunate to have Antoine involved at the School and helping create meaningful opportunities for our students,” said Robert Alexander González, dean of the UNM School of Architecture and Planning. “The Predock Center continues to be a space where students can collaborate and seek inspiration, as does George Pearl Hall, which he designed and remains a fixture of the campus.”
Predock received the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award, and he his design portfolio includes museums, residences, hotels, offices, art and entertainment centers, sports, educational and research facilities around the world.
His projects on the UNM campus include the Cornell parking structure, the original UNM School of Law building and George Pearl Hall – which houses the SA+P. Predock also designed the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts in Ruidoso, the first phase of the West Side’s La Luz homes and the Rio Grande Nature Center.
Originally from Lebanon, Missouri, Predock has previously said he considers Albuquerque his spiritual home. The mayor’s declaration noted how Predock continues to contribute to the education and development of students and young architects, supporting the imagination and ingenuity of future generations.
Click here to hear from Antoine Predock in his own words, through a video produced previously by the UNM Foundation.
