Santa Fe, New Mexico: 23 June 2019: The former
New Mexico Public Welfare
Building, also known as the Federal Emergency Recovery Administration
Building or FERA building, 408 Galisteo Street; architect: John Gaw Meem.
Built in 1934, this building served as headquarters for FERA and other
relief agencies working in New Mexico during the Depression[1]. Now called
the Villagra Building, housing the New Mexico Department of Veterans Services
and New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.
References
- New
Mexico Public Welfare Building - Santa Fe, Living New Deal website,
accessed 15 July 2019.
- Chris Wilson, The Myth of Santa Fe, UNM Press (1996), ch.8.:
"In 1934 Meem reached the mature formulation of the Territorial Revival in
the Federal Emergency Recovery Administration (FERA) Building ... The
placement of the FERA Building, facing the entrance to sthe state capitol,
and the use of this new regional classical style symbolically asserted the
advent of New Deal bureaucracy. Not surprisingly Meem and [his associate
Gordon] Street employed the Territorial Revival for several other New Deal
civic buildings in Santa Fe: a municipal building (Meem, 1936), the New
Mexico Supreme Court (Street 1936)...
- Kathryn A. Flynn, Public Art and Architecture in New Mexico
1933-1943: A guide to the New Deal Legacy, Sunstone Press (2012), p.129:
"This building designed by John Gaw Meem housed the WPA and CCC offices as
well as the Welfare Department. Now it has the New Mexico Parks and
Recreation program in it.
- Buildings
Designed by John Gaw Meem, National Register of Historic Places,
accessed 15 July 2019.