New Mexico Public Welfare Building

This handsome adobe-style building rose in the depths of the Great Depression, completed in nineteen thirty-five. It was the New Mexico Public Welfare Building, headquarters for the federal and state relief agencies that kept families fed and working through the hardest years the country had known.

It was designed by John Gaw Meem, the architect most responsible for the soft, earthen look that defines Santa Fe today. With its flat roof, thick walls, and wooden detailing, the building is an early example of what is called the Territorial Revival style in public architecture here, a look the state later embraced for its capitol complex.

So this is more than an old office. It is a monument to the New Deal in New Mexico, a place where the federal government and a struggling state pooled their efforts, wrapped in the distinctive architecture of the high desert.