Threatened: Santa Fe Indian School Amphitheater
By Elizabeth McNamara | Online Only | Nov. 16, 2010
The Paolo Soleri Amphitheater looks more like Santa Fe's clay-colored earth than an outdoor theater. Built to frame the sun and moon, the theater is named for the famed architect that designed it for the Santa Fe Indian School more than 45 years ago.
"This first public and largest earth-cast building constructed by Soleri represents a synthesis of his Southwest sensibility with the blossoming of American Indian arts," says Mary Hoadley, sites coordinator for Cosanti, a nonprofit organization devoted to the Italian architect's work. "[And it is] unique in involving Native American students in the actual construction."
Despite the Soleri's architectural significance, last June the Santa Fe Indian School announced plans to demolish the amphitheater, citing $100,000 in annual maintenance costs and the negative influence of rowdy concertgoers on young students.
"The general public happens to feel they can do as they please when they come to concerts here. They leave alcohol on our campus, and our 12- and 14-year-olds are exposed to their drug use," says Everett Chavez, the school's superintendent. "And the place is falling apart. To salvage it would cost about $4.9 million." (That figure, Chaves says, includes the cost of rehabilitation and the addition of a canopy.)
"If we were to secure the dollars and then decided to restore the theater," says Chavez, "it would be used exclusively for educational purposes. No more concerts, no more rock stuff or anything like that. And with a caveat like that, I'm not sure the community will still want to fund [the restoration]."
So far more than 6,400 people have joined a Facebook group to save the Soleri, and 1,388 have signed a petition in favor of saving the structure. Soleri, who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright in 1947, "is considered the father of the green architecture movement," says Tom Drake, spokesman for the state Historic Preservation Division. "There was a National Register nomination drawn up for the entire school campus [in the late 1980s] and, even though the theater then was much too young to be considered historic by the [National Park Service's] standards, they listed it as a significant contributing structure worthy of protection."
But the school is a sovereign entity located on Federal Trust Land and is owned and operated by the 19 Pueblos in the state of New Mexico, so no local laws exist to prevent or delay demolition. In short, says Drake, the decision has to come "from the inside."
In July U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) wrote a letter to Chavez and AIPC Chairman Joe Garcia, offering to help preserve the Soleri. But Chavez says although he responded that school officials would be open to meeting the senators, he has not heard from either senator.
Sen. Bingaman's office said it recently reached out to the Department of the Interior for possible funding opportunities to help preserve the amphitheater.
"This historical landmark has been an important venue for a great number of activities that go on in Santa Fe, and in our opinion it would be a significant loss to the community if the amphitheater is not retained," Bingaman said in a statement this week.
The theater closed in August, and the AIPC erected a chain-link fence around its perimeter. At the moment, the Indian School does not have the $500,000 needed to demolish Soleri Amphitheater, but "we have a lot of sledgehammers," Chavez says.
"Historic preservationists are great at ID-ing projects, but they have no money to help us," says Chavez. "Buildings don't maintain themselves and, not to diminish the value of art, but no one has a good plan to maintain [the Soleri]."
Read more: Demolitions at the Santa Fe Indian School
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Comments
Submitted by David Licata at: November 18, 2010
It is becoming increasingly clear that despite the efforts of Santa Fe residents, SFIS alumni, politicians, preservationists, and architects, we are going to wake up one morning and the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater is going to be razed. And that's a shame, because the world doesn't need fewer beautiful and daring amphitheaters, it needs fewer casinos, parking lots, outlet malls, or whatever is going to be built in its place.
Submitted by ConradS at: November 18, 2010
The amphitheater on the Santa Fe Indian School campus was designed by Soleri for the Institute of American Indian Arts while that school was on the site.