Helen Thompson, Santa Fe Modern: Contemporary Design in the High Desert

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Pre-order signed copies of Santa Fe Modern fom CW. Book publishes November 9

Santa Fe’s dramatic mountain landscape, endless views, clear light, pueblo-style adobe architecture, and vibrant history of indigenous cultures has made the desert oasis a popular destination for creative spirits for over a century. In the last few decades, though, the city has emerged as a hub for contemporary design, art, photography, and architecture. A robust proliferation of modernist homes has changed both the shape and intention of Santa Fe’s buildings as well as their relationship to the landscape.

With a connoisseur’s eye, author Helen Thompson has collected twenty stunning residences in Santa Fe Modern: Contemporary Design in the High Desert that illustrate that this new Santa Fe is no longer a kitschy tourist destination known for an eponymous “style.” She demonstrates the paradigm shift, describing in elegant prose how architectural ideas that are both new and ancient have redefined the city and its culture, and paired with Casey Dunn’s evocative photography, shows how this style revolution has emerged as a design tour de force. Together they spotlight a remarkable collection of Southwestern residences that range from sleek and sophisticated to quirky and deeply personal.

Santa Fe Modern reveals the high desert landscape as an ideal setting for bold, abstracted forms of modernist houses. Wide swaths of glass, deep-set portals, long porches, and courtyards allow vistas, color, and light to become integral parts of the very being of a house, emboldening a way to experience a personal connection to the desert landscape. The architects featured draw from the New Mexican architectural heritage–they use ancient materials such as adobe in combination with steel and glass, and they apply this language to the proportions and demands exacted by today’s world. The houses they have designed are confident examples of architecture that is particular to the New Mexico landscape and climate, and yet simultaneously evoke the rigorous expressions of modernism. The vigor and the allure of modern art and architecture hearten each other in a way that is visible and exciting, and this book demonstrates the synergistic relationship between art, architecture, and the land.

About the Author

Helen Thompson is a nationally known writer on interior design and architecture. Formerly a food writer and editor for Texas Monthly, she was the Texas city editor for Metropolitan Home and has written and produced articles for Elle Decor, Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, Martha Stewart Living, Western Interiors, Traditional Home, and Veranda. She is also the author of Marfa Modern and Texas Made, Texas Modern and a contributor to Hocker 2005-2020 Landscapes, all Monacelli titles, as well as The Big Texas Steakhouse Cookbook, and The Mansion on Turtle Creek Cookbook. She lives in Santa Fe.  Casey Dunn is an Austin-based architectural and landscape photographer whose work has appeared in Dwell, the New York Times Magazine, Interior Design, Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, and Paper City Magazine. He is the photographer for Marfa Modern, Texas Made, Texas Modern, and Oasis (Potter, 2020).