John Gaw Meem at Acoma: The Restoration of San Esteban del Rey Mission

1: Background: A Work of Architecture and Its Contexts

15 The Keres people of Ácoma have always felt that what they built on their rock belonged to them. The European presence, centered in Santa Fe over a hundred miles away and represented only intermittently by a priest, a lieutenant alcalde mayor, or a government school teacher, has not dissuaded them. In 1680, when other Pueblos brought down their churches, the Ácomas did not. They killed Father Maldonado, and later offered shelter to Pueblo refugees, but they refused to destroy what they considered their own. —J O H N K E S S E L L Acoma’s Ideal environments as a Context the Keres-speaking people of Acoma built the san esteban del rey Mission within their high mesa settlement, now known as old Acoma or sky city, between the years 1629 and 1644 in a geographically remote valley. tightly integrated with the village, the great mission dominates the vast plain, presenting a monumental character akin to the surrounding mesa landscape. The effort made to reach the village and mission is a memorable experience for any outsider and even for members of the Acoma community, most of whom at present live at least fifteen miles from the mesa settlement of old Acoma. The Acoma people have established an intimate relationship with the environment. Major features of the landscape are recognized and named, past and present are balanced in these features. The earthen village is one with the 1 Background A woRk of ARChIteCtuRe And Its Contexts 15 16 chaPter one rock face of the cliff, hidden from plain sight, difficult to access, and highly defensible. The daily life rhythms of old Acoma are intrinsically tied to the settlement on the rock; occupation of Acoma lands is confirmed to date back at least a thousand years,1 giving the Acomas the ability to claim the village as one of the oldest continuously inhabited villages in the United states. Acoma’s past is known to its people through oral histories that are passed from generation to generation. it is generally believed that the old Acoma village we know today was built just before or concurrently with the mission.2 As architecture, the village and the mission present two kinds of ideal environments. The first ideal environment, the village, is bound to the land not only through the narrative of the Acomas’ understanding of their place but also through use of materials and environmental forces. oriented and laid out to catch the sun and wind, the stepped rows of houses collect warmth from their southern orientation. The rooms within remain insulated, and the adjacent streets are shaded by the rows themselves. The current seventeenthcentury village was rebuilt on top of an older pueblo. it has attributes of the figure 2: san esteban del rey Mission and old Acoma village, general view from the south. James M. slack, April 5, 1934. HAbs nM, 31-AcoMP, 2-1; Historic American buildings survey (HAbs); Prints and Photographs Division, library of congress (hereafter P&P lc). BacKGround 17 older pueblo, but the current village is different in both form and layout. Unlike the old pueblos which are modeled on clustered units and ceremonial squares, Acoma’s rows separate to form plazas. traditionally, they include the village kivas. Although the village was newly built in the seventeenth century, the principles on which the building is based come from ancient traditions that consider the man-made environment in relation to climate, natural processes, and natural features in the landscape. The stories of Acoma individuals and their ancestors are located in specific places within the landscape , woven, like the architecture, into the site. in this ideal environment, the individual and the culture of the group are also part of the rhythm of the environment. The second ideal environment, the san esteban del rey Mission and its church, belongs conceptually to a seventeenth-century european idea of perfect environment, one whose architecture follows the architectural treatises of the early renaissance in europe. built with a clear proportional accuracy, the adobe and stone complex presents a form of beauty that is based in mathematical precision. its dominance as a structure within the village, and indeed the whole valley, clearly follows the european model. The individual in this ideal figure 3: Houses, old Acoma village. James M. slack, April 16, 1934. HAbs nM, 31-AcoMP, 1-31, P&P lc. 18 chaPter one environment exists within a hierarchy with God at the top and...