Photo Courtesy of Rachel Preston

By Rachel Preston
 
There’s so much that’s special about Taos:
The crescent-moon of mountains on the east that embrace this place; the desert that spills out from this container toward the west—and our ever more beautiful setting sun; the great chasm that provides and protects our water sources in the form of the Rio Grande Gorge; rainbows that splash across the sky in layer upon layer after summer rains; the Pueblo, stacked to take advantage of the concept of “smallness” that allows desert dwellers to shed heat in the summer and share heat in the winter; the multicultural community that includes the children of Mexicans, Central, and South Americans of every indigenous mixture; Native Americans from Plains and Pueblos and Woodland cultures; crypto-Jews; Europeans; Africans; and Asians of many lineages… our culture, and thereby our traditions, our foods, our music, our architectural forms…These are the things which make Taos divine.
 
The beauty of being something that was created as a response to a living environment, and not as an imposition or adaptation that works despite the environment, is what makes Taos’ remoteness so precious. It preserved who and what was created here. The forms you see in the Plaza, at the Pueblo, as you gaze out over our agricultural landscape from the overlook in the gardens at the Couse House, and even the Earthships on the mesa - are real, living beings. They breathe the sun and wind and what little rain there is. In the spring, as the mountain is transformed from a snowy pleasure-seeker’s paradise into a green living breathing ancestor, the water overflows the banks of the acequias and brings life to all. We see wildflowers larger than you can imagine, animals and gardens flourishing, hummingbirds and monarchs and every manner of wild animal, and the people working the land as best they can. In our hot dry summers, before the rains come, if they come at all, all the beings of Taos – the buildings and the people, the acequias, the plants, and the animals  - all move closer to the earth, into the shade where it is cool.
 
Taos responds to the environment and the cultures within, and provides a unique, rich and varied shelter to those that seek it out.
 
We are artists, musicians, craftsmen, writers, architects… we are healers, creators… spiritual beings searching for our voices. We come here to find sanctuary. Sanctuary, since the 4th century in England, is a concept of having a right to safety, and to pursue life outside of what was expected… It is the right to ‘be’, outside of political, religious, or cultural requirements.  Taos was these things when Mabel Dodge Luhan brought her salons here from New York and Europe to the beautiful home on the east end of Kit Carson, and this spirit and the artistic and architectural forms it produces are still very much alive today.
 
 
Rachel Preston is an architectural designer in Taos, New Mexico, whose focus is on technology-free green design, historic preservation, and creating spaces of sanctuary. You can email her at intentiondesign@gmail.com  or visit her website www.archinia.com.