AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Chief architect home designer4/2/2023 ![]() She eventually became one of the most famous Native American artists of the era.Ĭolter's interest in Native American culture began when an uncle gave the family a series of sketches by Sioux prisoners who'd been interned in Montana in the 1870s. The floorplan led visitors past Native American artefacts to shops where travellers could buy their own Indigenous crafts. Harvey wanted to showcase high-quality crafts linked to Indigenous cultures, so his company hired Native American artists to demonstrate their techniques, including Navajo weaver Elle of Ganado, who wove blankets in the building. Colter was a pioneer in a male-dominated field, "in charge of important commissions that have stood the test of time and are part of America's cultural heritage," said H Ruth Todd of Page & Turnbull, a female-led architectural firm that has restored several of Colter's Grand Canyon buildings.Īrchitectural designer Geraldene Blackgoat (Navajo) said that while she didn't learn about Colter in school, "which focused mostly on white male architects", she "gives Colter credit for using her privilege to acknowledge and pay tribute to Native American vernacular design".Ĭolter's first assignment for Fred Harvey was to design the interior of the Indian Building at the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. Though white, Colter was a lifelong student of Native American art and architecture, and her "vision" of the Southwest helped educate tourists about Native American culture. La Posada was a Spanish ranch-style building of the early 1800s, Hermit's Rest the refuge of a rustic mountain man, The Desert View Watchtower an ancient Indigenous edifice guarding the canyon. Her design choices were governed by the backstories she imagined for her buildings. Her Pueblo-style plaster walls, exposed wood and stone and niches for saints helped define the vernacular design style of the US Southwest. She designed hotels, curio shops and rest areas, channelling the region's landscapes and cultures. In the 1880s, the Santa Fe joined forces with Fred Harvey to lure tourists to the Southwest by commissioning the building of high-quality accommodation along the line.Ĭolter freelanced for Harvey from 1902 to 1910, when she was hired full-time, and she remained Harvey's go-to architect until 1947. The two companies felt there were no decent hotels and affordable food along Santa Fe's rail line were hard to find. Instead she became the go-to architect for two companies working in tandem to "open" the American West (already inhabited by Native Americas) to settlers and later tourists following the US Civil War (1861-65): the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (nicknamed the Santa Fe) and the Fred Harvey Company, which built restaurants and hotels along the route. Of the millions of people who visit the Grand Canyon annually, few know Colter's story. But her iconic Grand Canyon buildings provide the best evidence of how she helped early (mostly white) tourists better understand how the region is home to diverse, millennia-old Native American cultures and civilisations. One of the few female architects of her time, Colter rejected European design in favour of buildings rooted in the Native American and Spanish heritage of the US Southwest.Ĭolter designed everything from the hacienda-style La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona (1930), to the interior of the Painted Desert Inn in Petrified Forest National Park (1947). Built in 1932 and inspired by ancient Native American structures, the Desert View Watchtower is the work of Mary Colter (1869-1958). But I was here to see the 70ft-high tower clinging to the canyon's rim. ![]() ![]() Standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, most people peer, awestruck, into this mile-deep chasm.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |