Memories, Memorials, and Monuments is intended to be a companion to Van Dorn Hooker's books Only in New Mexico: An Architectural History of the University of New Mexico, the First Century 1889-1989, and the large format picture book The University of New Mexico (with V.B. Price and photographer Richard Reck). Memories, Memorials, and Monuments augments the related book Miracle on the Mesa: A History of the University of New Mexico, 1889-2003 by former UNM President William "Bud" E. Davis. The book also responds to the University Regents desire to have a compendium of the University's named places.
The campus began with a scattering of buildings on a treeless mesa at the eastern edge of Albuquerque. Today, the campus is a vibrant and green campus within the larger metropolitan area. The black and white pictures of early buildings depict the buildings and places at or close to the time they were named. These buildings and places may not be recognizable today. And as with any change in the built environment, some named buildings and several markers have been lost to time. Background information may be missing. This first compendium, therefore, is admittedly incomplete and limited to the University of New Mexico's Albuquerque campus. The authors hope that the book will spur others, including those associated with the satellite campuses, to carry on the effort as new information becomes available, the University changes, and the next generation establishes new memorials.
Author Biography:
A native of New Mexico, Ann Clarke attended the University of New Mexico as a freshman when Zimmerman Field was still the center of campus and the Duck Pond did not exist. She later received her J.D. from the Law School, where she was lead articles editor for the Natural Resources Journal. She completed her undergraduate degree in geology at Colorado College, a master's degree in geography from the University of Oregon, and her doctorate from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Her research and writing have focused on the relationship of the individual to society and nature. After retiring from NASA, she moved to California's Central Coast where she teaches food, agriculture and environmental law. Van Dorn Hooker II was born in 1921 in Carthage, Texas. After serving in World War II as a ground radio operator in India, he studied architecture at the University of Texas, Austin, and did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. He and his wife, Peggy, also an architect, eventually settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Van Dorn at first worked for John Gaw Meem, whose firm had designed several early buildings at the University of New Mexico in the Pueblo Mission Style. Van Dorn established his own private practice on Canyon Road, where he became a recognized expert on restoring historic adobe churches. In the early 1960s, as it was about to undergo a huge expansion, the University of New Mexico hired Van Dorn as its first University Architect. One of his favorite and at the time most controversial projects was overseeing the landscaping of a dirt faculty parking lot on the Main Campus, the centerpiece of which is the now beloved Duck Pond. He was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Van Dorn's watercolors and many articles and books, including Memories, Memorials, and Monuments, reflect his appreciation for New Mexico's natural environment, its architecture, its people, and their stories. He died in 2015.
