ALEXANDER DZUREC is not your typical architect. For whatever reason, he’s been asked to design some of the weirdest structures in New Mexico. He explains: “I like working with artists – the collaboration and cross-pollination – and I always want to make a difference in the community.” He’s definitely succeeded on that front.
You designed the Meow Wolf building.
Yeah, that was a great example of a collaboration with artists. We helped them look for buildings, but nothing seemed to fit. Then the bowling alley came up for sale. We looked at it and signed on the spot. I have to tell you, when they were first describing this experiential space, I had trouble wrapping my head around the whole thing. And trying to explain it to the city and the inspectors? That was a challenge. But it was incredibly fascinating to slowly see it all emerge. That’s what you call a creative client.
And the city bus shelters?
Santa Fe Trails put out a request, and they only had three respondents. Two of them were state companies that did bus shelters, but they wanted local, so they contracted with us even though we’d never done one. Our idea was to do something that really tied into Santa Fe’s Hispanic and Native American artistic heritage. So we worked with a basket-weaving artist and developed designs based on Native American patterns, done with traditional Hispanic punched tin methods. Then we thought, while we’re doing this, let’s update all of the logos and graphic design, so that’s what you see on the buses today.
What about the spaceship?
I get a call from this guy who says he wants to build a spaceship for a van community. He was into the van life idea, and this would be a community meeting space at the center of that. It had to be mobile so it could be deconstructed and moved and reconstructed anywhere. We built it on Fly Ranch, a piece of property in northern Nevada that the Burning Man organization owns. We created a sort of flying saucer with shipping containers as the walls and a big fabric roof. It looks like it’s sailing. He loved it.
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