Santa Fe Modern: Contemporary Design in the High Desert [Hardcover]

First survey of modernist and contemporary architecture and interiors in the richly layered architectural history of Santa Fe

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.Featured in the Wall Street Journal 2021 Holiday Gift Guide

Featured in Robb Report’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide


Santa Fe Modern would look good in the centre of any room, however, it also provides a much deeper conversation and approach to the natural and built environment.”
—Aesthetica

“The final volume of author Helen Thompson’s “Modern” trilogy arrives filled with the sort of comfortably contemporary homes and lean interiors the author is known for finding, exploring and deconstructing for our voyeuristic delight. But most exciting, this is the first book-length overview of modernist and l³w