ABSTRACT: Using as inspiration the16th century Laws of the Indies and the 21st century Charter of the New Urbanism as well as what works in public spaces around the world, this paper offers ideas for revitalizing New Mexico’s existing plazas and for planning and designing new plazas.

---

Village Plaza Plan for Mesa del Sol Community Master Plan,
Thomas Leatherwood, 1997, New Mexico State Land Office.
Drawing by Sketchbook Studio’s George Lawrence

Background

The Laws of the Indies were compiled in 1573 by King Phillip II of Spain to instruct to colonial communities to maintain friendly relations with natives, select a town site, and distribute town lots and farming lands to colonists. The law prescribes a main plaza, to be located in the heart of the city.

The physical planning effect of the Laws of the Indies’ plaza requirement on communities throughout Spain’s former colonies has been striking. To this day plazas offer visitors and residents a memorable, walkable experience. Indeed, a central plaza is a characteristic of many communities throughout New Mexico that is especially memorable and dear. Yet, like so many other sites of cities’ birthplaces, whether it be the railroad, fort or waterfront, time’s neglect and abuse has all too often transformed even the most wonderful New Mexico plaza into fragments of its past glory.1

Motorcycle Marriage, Old Town Plaza, Albuquerque

Examples of New Mexico Communities with Plazas

New Mexico Communities Seeking a Plaza

Ten Ways to Get Back to the Plaza

1 Ask the Town What It Needs

Public space authority Fred Kent urges trusting your own community residents, noting that “in any community there are people who can provide an historical perspective, valuable insights into how the area functions, and an understanding of the critical issues and what is meaningful to people.” 2

Public space design excels when it creates settings with a deeper sense of meaning. The surest way to identify what people need in a given place is to simply ask them. An open house held in Santa Fe in September 2001 not only got lots of citizen input on rail yard plaza, it identified citizen talents along with their aspirations. An October 2001 Silver City workshop developed a vision statement: “Silver City is a town that seeks to preserve and foster our eclectic and artistic small town atmosphere while promoting our health and well being.” A community will not go very far without a shared vision. We all need to emulate the Midwest town that puts its vision on restaurant place mats; perhaps plazas restaurant throughout New Mexico could be enlisted in such vision marketing.

Lesson: get the vision juices flowing, needed to gather the planning, political and financial will to make any large public works project happen.

2 Observe Current Uses

Facility not used? Underused? Incorrectly used? Are benches used not only for sitting but skateboarding, lovemaking, dancing…?

A working plaza can serve as a place where children observe their parents safely interacting with strangers, a rarity in this country and in these times. A plaza can meet this as well other social needs of the community.

A community can choose what happens at the plaza and how things are done. If pedestrian access is a priority and garish signs are not, say so. If political engagement – protests, candlelight vigils, and celebrations – resonates with your community, the plaza is the place for it. 3

Lesson: Choosing uses of the plaza are a function of who you are as a community.

Santa Fe Plaza

3 Keep It Local

Plazas must be rooted in the local culture, milieu and history that ooze authenticity. Thus, when “new” is introduced into a plaza, ensure its compatibility with the original plaza design.

The King of Spain alone controlled the design of 16th century plazas. Today many players affect community design. Some are from elsewhere and well nigh invisible in their undue influence: highway department, postal service, Wal Mart, Texaco and their local agents with ideas about such issues as numbers of parking lot size and building size and location. Too often players whose agenda is elsewhere influence plaza design and functions in ways out of sync with community needs.

To keep it local also means not going for the grand slam every time. Annually “plazaffecianados” should choose some tangible action to complete, no matter how small. For, just as there’s been incremental degradation, so, too can you have incremental successes. Eschewing big box convention facilities in favor of quaint little pastel buildings has transformed Miami Beach from a slum into a $9 billion real estate bonanza, with world famous public spaces like Lincoln Road and Ocean Boulevard. Stores and galleries surrounding Santa Fe’s Plaza, whose rents sometimes topping $100/square foot, equal a super mall’s square footage without the mall look.

Lesson: Better results derive from acting locally on many little things that add up rather than focusing on some big action.

Mesilla

4 Love A Place Without Being Dangerous To It

Attention to the needs and rights of plaza users is the means offering incidental civilities to a plaza. Great care must be taken in the plaza’s design and use so that it becomes a place loved and, over time, renewal, without it being a place obsessed over to such a degree that the plaza becomes a victim of admiration.

Redesigning old plazas may require weaving in local history as buildings are erected on bare lots, face lift old buildings and create facades over spaces needing shoring up. Over time incremental changes creep in and we then wonder how it happened that the plaza has lost much of what was loved there in the first place. The task becomes one of rediscovering the past for what was desired while avoiding uses that makes the heart go yonder.

Lesson: a formula for success that works elsewhere, like suburban malls, is doomed to fail in a plaza. Be true to your heart.

Taos, 1908

5 Follow the Laws (of the Indies)

It is helpful to review a plaza’s changes, using historical photos and writings to gain a perspective on effects of changes over time. What makes a plaza great is the sense of identity attached to it by residents and visitors alike. We used to know how to build communities, however, the forces that now shape community are hard to control. Change used to be more gradual, allowing trial and error to discern what works. But today we have a veritable explosion of uncoded design and building types, due to our tendency to move forward and not learn from mistakes. More attention is thus critical on evaluating and refining steps in the design process. We can’t rebuild our communities, we can only live in the country, is the message of the 20th century. Redefining the meaning and value of the plaza is a fittingly symbolic way of going beyond that 20th century message and toward a back to the future path of planning in the 21st century.

Plazas, when over designed for all kinds of daily activities, may eliminate the ability to host special occasion events or celebrations. If so, the community has right to make design and use changes when the plaza no longer meets its needs.4

Lesson: Many plaza functions have worked well for centuries. Be bold when it’s time to leave well enough alone.

Sawmill Community Land Trust, near Old Town Albuquerque

6 It’s Not Just A Park But A Plaza

The plaza is the heart, the founding spot vis-à-vis the Laws of Indies, the community gathering point for celebrations, the geographical glue that binds community culture together. It must be designed and managed to be flexible enough to offer users substantial freedom of use and for people of all ages to claim symbolic ownership, allowing for continual change and adaptations.

Plaza design should incorporate local climate, history, topography, and building practice. The community comprehensive plan can be the vehicle by which the plaza is integrated into the future of the town. Tools available to assist in this task include:

Lesson: Build quality, avoid the scraggly and cheap.

forward to page 2 of 3

---

Notes:

1. European colonizers were the first and most qualified city planners, who carried out the unique achievement of urbanizing an entire continent. An obvious result of this was the construction of many beautiful settlements, which were feasible, flexible and coherent. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the norms established by the Spanish Laws of the Indies were somewhat more flexible than the norms we have now, and that the Spanish urban planners of the 16th century were more sensible than those of the 20th “Havana: It is and it isn't”, by Mario González Sedeño. Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Vol. XII, No. 3, 1991. www.cubaupdate.org/art22.htm

2. Fred Kent, How to Turn A Place Around - A Handbook for Creating Successful Public Spaces, Project for Public Spaces, 2000
3. I witnessed it work in Telluride’s square in 1997 when a county commissioner recited Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”.
4. Steven Carr et.al., Public Space, Cambridge U. Press, 1992, page 175

---

Author and Copyright Information

Copyright 2002 by author

Ken Hughes, AICP
New Mexico Local Government Division, State Planning Office
2001-02 Fellow, Knight Program in Community Building
KHughes@dfa.state.nm.us