Northern New Mexico College’s adobe program is making its first foray into international exchange with a two-week building course in Casas Grandes, Mexico beginning Sept. 8.
Adobe Department Chair Quentin Wilson said the program hopes to foster cultural exchange and connect growing adobe movements on both sides of the border.
“The Mexicans are great artisans and virtuosos in their use of concrete, and so much of recent Mexican architecture has been concrete,” Wilson said. “All of a sudden there are these younger people who are beginning to notice that adobe, it’s not just a building material — it’s tied into culture and heritage and patrimony.”
Wilson said a Northern student named James Call, who lives in Casas Grandes, initiated and organized the seminar. Students will build a vaulted adobe roof on Call’s property using an ancient Egyptian technique, Wilson said.
Wilson said that’s one of his favorite aspects of the adobe revival — the “reverse information technology transfer” from ancient cultures to modern ones.
“Here we have this simple system, by seemingly uneducated people in a small stature, and they can build these buildings out of earth,” Wilson said. “They may be humble but it’s a roof, it’s walls. As I say, there’s a certain magic-ness to it, the way it goes up.”
As part of the seminar, students will visit the nearby Paquimé archeological site to view an example of pre-Hispanic earthen construction.
The two-credit course, Adobe 112: Arches, Domes and Vaults, is still accepting students. Wilson said Call is organizing home stays with Mexican families, and the program will coordinate transportation from New Mexico’s southern border to the course site. For more information, visit www.adobecollege.com or call 581-4113.