Churches of Santa Fe

In the end of May I found myself in Santa Fe, New Mexico, attending a family wedding. Santa Fe has an interesting history that weaves Native American and Spanish cultures into the ethnic stew of the present-day southwest in the US. Perhaps most unexpected was that Santa Fe was settled by Europeans before my hometown of Boston. The City of Santa Fe was founded in 1610 while Boston dates from 1630.

The architecture of the churches particularly caught my eye. Typical of the southwest, the palate of the facades consists of earth tones, reflecting Spanish architecture and local materials. The results are a very appealing simplicity in these sacred spaces. Following are samples of these churches.

Above right: Simple interior of the Santuario Diocesano de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe).

Below: Exterior of the Santuario Diocesano de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.


Below: San Miguel Mission Church, recognized as the Oldest Church in the United States San Miguel Mission, dates from the early 1600s.

Below: The St. Francis Cathedral Basilica





Right: The famous spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel. It was constructed in the 1870s. As the taped recording in the chapel tells the story, the chapel was built without a stairs to the choir loft, and this required climbing ladders. This was ok for men, but this chapel was used by nuns. As the referenced web site states, "many carpenters were consulted for a solution, but all of them felt that a traditional stairway would take up too much room." What to do? "The Sisters sought divine guidance, and on the ninth and final day of their Novena, a mysterious carpenter appeared who designed and constructed a circular stairway to the loft. His 'miraculous stairway' contains 33 steps in two full 360-degree turns, with no center support, nor is it held from the sides. Upon completing the stairway, the carpenter disappeared without receiving payment for his work." It still is a mystery to architects and structural engineers as to how it is self-supporting. In recent times, they added braces so it does not collapse with the vibrations on traffic on the street outside.