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Mary Colter: Builder Upon the Red Earth
An architect for the Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey Company, Colter laid the groundwork for female architects who followed. Seven of her remarkable structures are preserved in Grand Canyon's historic district. This is her story.
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
June 21, 2022
I picked up this book because on the cover there's a picture of the Watchtower at Grand Canyon, and for years I've wondered how the NPS came to have a new building that is so appropriate for the location.
Apparently there's discussion about Colter's involvement in some of the buildings, but my take is that it really doesn't matter. Her vision clearly extended to all aspects of the work, whether it was the initial brainstorming, the architectural drawings, the interior design, or details of the furnishings. Fred Harvey & Co. liked her work and kept her busy working on many of their facilities in the SW.
I wish modern day construction would take a page from Colter's approach to building:
p 84: Before construction began, Colter made a model of the project on a table six feet long. Every tree and bush was indicated as well as every building, built to scale and painted to indicate which building materials would be used — adobe, log, or stone. The model was useful in determining where to place structures to preserve not only the historic buildings, but also the trees, flowers, and shrubs.
Apparently Bright Angel Lodge has a remarkable 'geological' fireplace.
p 84: It was made of stone from the strata that formed the canyon itself. The great water-worn stones of the Colorado River, which were at the base of the canyon, formed the hearth of the fireplace. Each succeeding layer of the canyon's strata was then laid all the way up to the ceiling. The surface stratum of the canyon, Kaibab limestone, finished off the top of the 10 ft-high fireplace.
On p 104, we learn that Colter admired Frank Waters and that his book "Man Who Killed the Deer" was better than any other book she'd read about Indians.
Over the years, I've admired many of the buildings she worked on w/o realizing that they had all been designed by the same person.
Apparently there's discussion about Colter's involvement in some of the buildings, but my take is that it really doesn't matter. Her vision clearly extended to all aspects of the work, whether it was the initial brainstorming, the architectural drawings, the interior design, or details of the furnishings. Fred Harvey & Co. liked her work and kept her busy working on many of their facilities in the SW.
I wish modern day construction would take a page from Colter's approach to building:
p 84: Before construction began, Colter made a model of the project on a table six feet long. Every tree and bush was indicated as well as every building, built to scale and painted to indicate which building materials would be used — adobe, log, or stone. The model was useful in determining where to place structures to preserve not only the historic buildings, but also the trees, flowers, and shrubs.
Apparently Bright Angel Lodge has a remarkable 'geological' fireplace.
p 84: It was made of stone from the strata that formed the canyon itself. The great water-worn stones of the Colorado River, which were at the base of the canyon, formed the hearth of the fireplace. Each succeeding layer of the canyon's strata was then laid all the way up to the ceiling. The surface stratum of the canyon, Kaibab limestone, finished off the top of the 10 ft-high fireplace.
On p 104, we learn that Colter admired Frank Waters and that his book "Man Who Killed the Deer" was better than any other book she'd read about Indians.
Over the years, I've admired many of the buildings she worked on w/o realizing that they had all been designed by the same person.
May 8, 2019
Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was born in 1869 in Pittsburgh. The family moved several times during her first eleven years finally settling permanently in St. Paul in 1880.
May became interested in Indian art as a youngster, an interest that would shape much of her work as an adult. I will only hit on the highlights of this book, which details Colter’s work for the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad. She is described as having developed the first truly American architectural style that did not have its origins in the architectural styles of Europe.
Mary Colter was a woman architect in a man’s world, and never held an architect’s license because the school she graduated from in California was not accredited at the time she received her degree. However, that was not a substantial deterrent because the Santa Fe Railroad had its own architects that had to approve her designs.
Mary is described repeatedly as a strong woman with a no-holds-barred way of speaking the truth to associates, friends, and relatives. She offended many and had frequent conflicts with colleagues who nevertheless respected her for her ingenious artistic instinct and style.
She was an avid collector of Indian art and jewelry and books about architecture and Indian culture. These she donated to various public institutions, wanting the public to see, enjoy, and learn about the art and culture of the Indians of the southwest.
Despite the friction between Mary and some of her professional associates, she made many enduring friendships. In her will, she remembered important friends as well as several working-class folks who had helped her along the way. It would seem that in the end, she made atonement for difficulties she had caused during her lengthy career.
May became interested in Indian art as a youngster, an interest that would shape much of her work as an adult. I will only hit on the highlights of this book, which details Colter’s work for the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad. She is described as having developed the first truly American architectural style that did not have its origins in the architectural styles of Europe.
Mary Colter was a woman architect in a man’s world, and never held an architect’s license because the school she graduated from in California was not accredited at the time she received her degree. However, that was not a substantial deterrent because the Santa Fe Railroad had its own architects that had to approve her designs.
Mary is described repeatedly as a strong woman with a no-holds-barred way of speaking the truth to associates, friends, and relatives. She offended many and had frequent conflicts with colleagues who nevertheless respected her for her ingenious artistic instinct and style.
She was an avid collector of Indian art and jewelry and books about architecture and Indian culture. These she donated to various public institutions, wanting the public to see, enjoy, and learn about the art and culture of the Indians of the southwest.
Despite the friction between Mary and some of her professional associates, she made many enduring friendships. In her will, she remembered important friends as well as several working-class folks who had helped her along the way. It would seem that in the end, she made atonement for difficulties she had caused during her lengthy career.
August 12, 2016
We were recently at the Grand Canyon, where I purchased this book, having become interested in Mary Colter after admiring some of her captivating architectural work along the South Rim. I don't generally lean toward a taste for Santa Fe or Rustic styles of architecture and design, but there is something about her work that speaks with a very unique and very arresting and interesting voice. By most accounts she was not a very easy person to work with, (and it couldn't have been easy for her to work in a world so dominated by men in the early nineteen hundreds), but I admire enormously her incredible attention to detail, and, even more than that, the truly remarkable scope of her vision, along with her uncompromising commitment toward following that vision through in every detail. I am amazed that she is not better known and better appreciated. I wished that I had read the book before our trip, to have been better informed about what was there to see if I had known to look. I never saw, for instance, the 'geological fireplace' in the lounge of the Bright Angel Lodge, not knowing to look for it. Is it still there? I don't know - and that's my point: there should be guided tours of her works at the Grand Canyon! I know her buildings are there to see, but there ought to be people devoted to making sure that you know they are there! She was an amazingly talented person. Read the book before you go :)
As an added note: this book did interest me in reading something more about Fred Harvey, the self-made entrepreneur who recognised and chose to employ the brilliant Mary Colter within his company. He seems to have been a very interesting individual in his own right.
As an added note: this book did interest me in reading something more about Fred Harvey, the self-made entrepreneur who recognised and chose to employ the brilliant Mary Colter within his company. He seems to have been a very interesting individual in his own right.
February 2, 2026
Originally published in 1980, this biography is journalistic in its style and content. The focus was on her accomplishments and many there were! I picked up the because she was responsible for iconic buildings at the Grand Canyon but was totally impressed with the wide range of other buildings she designed. Particularly interesting was the interior decorating she did. She pioneered a new movement with the successful integration of authentic Native American art, architectural designs and building methods with newer "southwest" art. She went to great lengths to use and replicate authentic furniture, indigenous art and functional interior decorations such as lighting fixtures, hand-painted glass panes, and even the china designs were based on mexican and native motifs. But then her unique design for standing ashtray - a jackrabbit holding an ashtray - added the whimsical. A quick read, this book left this reader wanting to investigate her life more thoroughly.
June 21, 2023
Having just visited the Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde and after spending two days with a fortunate free upgrade to the Mary Colter suite at El Tovar I became intrigued with Colter's building designs and Mary Colter herself. The Hopi House, The Lookout, Hermits Rest, Bright Angel Lodge and The Watchman Tower are all fabulous with their native American designs which blend in with the Grand Canyon and are reminiscent of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.
She was a remarkable and determined woman who was able to convince her male bosses to approve her designs and actually build her buildings the way she wanted them to appear. The Fred Harvey company and the Santa Fe RR recognized and were fortunate enough to have her on their team. They were smart enough to let her have her way which undoubtedly attracted many guests to use their trains and visit their hotels.
This was a pretty short book and I plan to read more about her. It does give the reader a great introduction into the life of this amazing woman.
You can read more about Fred Harvey, the Santa Fe RR , and Mary Colter in Stephen Fried's book Appetite for America...
Also she mentions that Mary Colter wrote a guidebook for the guides at the time which explains her buildings and artwork decorations within them. It was especially written about the Watchtower which is an amazing building with unbelievable native american artwork all over the interior. This was definitely my favorite of her buildings at the Grand Canyon. Visit it if you make it to the Grand Canyon.
She was a remarkable and determined woman who was able to convince her male bosses to approve her designs and actually build her buildings the way she wanted them to appear. The Fred Harvey company and the Santa Fe RR recognized and were fortunate enough to have her on their team. They were smart enough to let her have her way which undoubtedly attracted many guests to use their trains and visit their hotels.
This was a pretty short book and I plan to read more about her. It does give the reader a great introduction into the life of this amazing woman.
You can read more about Fred Harvey, the Santa Fe RR , and Mary Colter in Stephen Fried's book Appetite for America...
Also she mentions that Mary Colter wrote a guidebook for the guides at the time which explains her buildings and artwork decorations within them. It was especially written about the Watchtower which is an amazing building with unbelievable native american artwork all over the interior. This was definitely my favorite of her buildings at the Grand Canyon. Visit it if you make it to the Grand Canyon.
April 12, 2018
A good overview of Mary Colter and her architectural and design work with the Harvey Company in the Southwest in the first 4-5 decades of the 20th century. Like most people, I discovered Mary Colter’s buildings at the Grand Canyon (because of this book I know that this is almost the only place where her work remains standing). The book is arranged chronologically, giving brief and well-summarized explanations of her family, education, and work. It’s very surface-level, though, and while the author does share a few short stories that highlight Colter’s brash and bold personality, the text would have been enriched with greater detail about Colter’s dealings with people around her. Overview on the buildings themselves is brief, too, and you might learn more fine detail about the structures from other sources. It’s a quick read with lots of pictures, and a great place to start if Colter’s Grand Canyon buildings captured your heart as they did mine.
August 17, 2025
When my husband and I visited the Grand Canyon this spring, I noticed most of the buildings around the South Rim were so rustic and blended right into the rocky backdrop. While in one of the stores near the El Tovar Lodge, where Henry and I ate lunch, I picked up a book about a woman who was responsible for some of that architecture, Mary Colter: Builder upon the Red Earth.
Colter grew up in Pittsburgh and then St. Paul, Minn., before heading to the California School of Design (now the San Francisco Art Institute) where she studied art and design. She was learning architecture as an apprentice at a local architect's office.
Her plan was to become a teacher to support her widowed mother and feeble sister, which she did for 15 years.
In 1902, she went to work as an architect and designer for the Fred Harvey Company that built lodges and restaurants as tourist travel on the rails went west to California.
One of her earliest projects was designing the Hopi House, a building on the Grand Canyon South Rim that looks just like a Puebloan dwelling, constructed with local, natural materials. It was built to sell authentic Native American arts and crafts and other goods. In its early days, Hopi artisans actually lived there while making their wares. I may have bought this book there.
It is across a driveway from El Tovar Lodge; Colter didn't design that building, but she designed the interior, always acquiring authentic decor and making it look used and well-worn, which aggravated workers who liked shiny, new objects.
Years later, after working on projects from New Mexico to California, she designed the Grand Canyon’s Desert View Watchtower near the eastern end of Rim Road. The 7-story structure was built from mostly locally sourced rocks and reused timber, with Colter overseeing the placement of every stone.
It's fashioned after several ancient Puebloan kivas and appears to grow almost organically from the canyon rim.
It still is open for tours today for visitors to catch a sweeping view of the canyon. Unfortunately, the administration had gutted the National Park Service staff prior to our visit and the Watchtower closed early, preventing us from entering.
A few years after Watchtower opened, Colter designed the Bright Angel Lodge just down from El Tovar. It opened in 1935.
Still later, in the 1940s, she redesigned the interior of the Painted Desert Inn in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, a building we visited on our Southwest trip last fall. Its redesign included murals painted by a local Hopi artist that Colter enlisted. I know I took pictures of those murals, but I can't find them. I do have a picture of the glass ceiling tiles that Civilian Conservation Corps workers painted and installed. Colter left those intact for us to enjoy 80 years later.
As I was reading this book, I was grateful to have seen so much of Colter's work, although I wish I had dallied longer.
It also made me think back to our Pennsylvania days when we explored Fallingwater, an iconic home jutting from a mountain and cantilevered over a creek, and other Frank Lloyd Wright designs.
It struck me that both architects were so similar; both believed architecture should be an extension of the natural environment, the American landscape.
They both were influential early 20th century architects: he in the Prairie style, she in the Southwest style with more focus on the land’s history.
Her career actually began a few decades before his, and there are other obvious differences. She's a woman and he's a man. And, you've never heard of her.
…
This book is distributed by the Grand Canyon Conservancy and you can buy it at GrandCanyon.org. There are other books out there on her, including one that says she's a myth and the stories about her are false. But she did design those buildings, just not like an architect today does. Licensing was different in her day and she only was licensed in California. She never saw the need to get her license for other states because the Fred Harvey Company had a group of licensed architects who did the final drawings of her designs. One owner of her buildings today says the myth book author is “clearly a misogynist,” which is entirely plausible given that too many people still think women aren't capable of doing “man work.”
Colter grew up in Pittsburgh and then St. Paul, Minn., before heading to the California School of Design (now the San Francisco Art Institute) where she studied art and design. She was learning architecture as an apprentice at a local architect's office.
Her plan was to become a teacher to support her widowed mother and feeble sister, which she did for 15 years.
In 1902, she went to work as an architect and designer for the Fred Harvey Company that built lodges and restaurants as tourist travel on the rails went west to California.
One of her earliest projects was designing the Hopi House, a building on the Grand Canyon South Rim that looks just like a Puebloan dwelling, constructed with local, natural materials. It was built to sell authentic Native American arts and crafts and other goods. In its early days, Hopi artisans actually lived there while making their wares. I may have bought this book there.
It is across a driveway from El Tovar Lodge; Colter didn't design that building, but she designed the interior, always acquiring authentic decor and making it look used and well-worn, which aggravated workers who liked shiny, new objects.
Years later, after working on projects from New Mexico to California, she designed the Grand Canyon’s Desert View Watchtower near the eastern end of Rim Road. The 7-story structure was built from mostly locally sourced rocks and reused timber, with Colter overseeing the placement of every stone.
It's fashioned after several ancient Puebloan kivas and appears to grow almost organically from the canyon rim.
It still is open for tours today for visitors to catch a sweeping view of the canyon. Unfortunately, the administration had gutted the National Park Service staff prior to our visit and the Watchtower closed early, preventing us from entering.
A few years after Watchtower opened, Colter designed the Bright Angel Lodge just down from El Tovar. It opened in 1935.
Still later, in the 1940s, she redesigned the interior of the Painted Desert Inn in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, a building we visited on our Southwest trip last fall. Its redesign included murals painted by a local Hopi artist that Colter enlisted. I know I took pictures of those murals, but I can't find them. I do have a picture of the glass ceiling tiles that Civilian Conservation Corps workers painted and installed. Colter left those intact for us to enjoy 80 years later.
As I was reading this book, I was grateful to have seen so much of Colter's work, although I wish I had dallied longer.
It also made me think back to our Pennsylvania days when we explored Fallingwater, an iconic home jutting from a mountain and cantilevered over a creek, and other Frank Lloyd Wright designs.
It struck me that both architects were so similar; both believed architecture should be an extension of the natural environment, the American landscape.
They both were influential early 20th century architects: he in the Prairie style, she in the Southwest style with more focus on the land’s history.
Her career actually began a few decades before his, and there are other obvious differences. She's a woman and he's a man. And, you've never heard of her.
…
This book is distributed by the Grand Canyon Conservancy and you can buy it at GrandCanyon.org. There are other books out there on her, including one that says she's a myth and the stories about her are false. But she did design those buildings, just not like an architect today does. Licensing was different in her day and she only was licensed in California. She never saw the need to get her license for other states because the Fred Harvey Company had a group of licensed architects who did the final drawings of her designs. One owner of her buildings today says the myth book author is “clearly a misogynist,” which is entirely plausible given that too many people still think women aren't capable of doing “man work.”
Read
January 15, 2021I have just ordered a copy of the book, and - as a lifelong transport historian and having an interest in architecture in general - I will read it with several thoughts in mind.
I had a friend who had been a draughtswoman for much of her life, and we had discussions on building design and use.
There is also a book about Mary Colter - by Fred Shaw and called False Architect: The Mary Colter Hoax - that questions how much input she truly had in the designs of the structures attributed to her.
Have any of those people reviewing Builder Upon the Red Earth read Shaw's book? I have a copy of Shaw's False Architect, and will be comparing the contents of the two books. I shall be coming on both for the first time, although there has been a lot of discussion about Colter's work with the Fred Harvey company on the Route 66 website.
Once I have read both books I hope to comment again.
I had a friend who had been a draughtswoman for much of her life, and we had discussions on building design and use.
There is also a book about Mary Colter - by Fred Shaw and called False Architect: The Mary Colter Hoax - that questions how much input she truly had in the designs of the structures attributed to her.
Have any of those people reviewing Builder Upon the Red Earth read Shaw's book? I have a copy of Shaw's False Architect, and will be comparing the contents of the two books. I shall be coming on both for the first time, although there has been a lot of discussion about Colter's work with the Fred Harvey company on the Route 66 website.
Once I have read both books I hope to comment again.
March 7, 2025
This was an interesting read, covering the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, who worked for the Fred Harvey Company, primarily in the Southwest, designing hotels next to newly built railroad stations. The lure of train travel was a new, glamorous way for people to vacation, and Coulter's hotels, lunch rooms, gift shops, and restaurants were welcome resting places for them. As the chief architect, and a woman during the period of 1902-1948 she had to be demanding and tireless as she directed the construction and interior design of the visionary hotels she built. She wanted her buildings to blend into the landscape and be tributes to the ancient building methods of the indigenous tribes of the western United States. Coulter's mark remains in her surviving buildings, primarily near the Grand Canyon.
March 7, 2018
Excellent overview of the life and work of Mary Colter, who designed many buildings in the Grand Canyon and along the Santa Fe Railroad line associated with the Fred Harvey Co. Colter was a pioneering woman in a field dominated by men, and she succeeded due to her great talent and forceful personality. She designed buildings to reflect their landscape and to include interior details that matched their exterior design and the surrounding area. I became curious about Colter after visiting her Grand Canyon buildings - I will be reading more about her.
August 29, 2025
An amazing (but short) book on an early female professional architect. But also an amazing history of industrialized tourism, tourism to the Southwest, a history of the Fred Harvey Company, a history of national park architecture.
This book was originally published in 1992 and I think Mary’s treatment of indigenous religious iconography would be handled differently today. Some of her decoration choices feel like cultural appropriation, especially her use of the religious Navajo sand paintings as decor for a hotel.
This book was originally published in 1992 and I think Mary’s treatment of indigenous religious iconography would be handled differently today. Some of her decoration choices feel like cultural appropriation, especially her use of the religious Navajo sand paintings as decor for a hotel.
November 23, 2017
Way more money than sense, building tourist towers and meccas out in the desert for that brief period of railroad dominance. Fascinating the confidence they had in her, her sphere of control and her budget. Inventory of properties if one is inclined to visit
March 21, 2020
Amazing lady, ahead of her time. A visionary.. her designs were a true tribute to southwest cultures.
August 2, 2022
Really enjoyed reading about Mary Colter and really want to see what's left of her legacy especially at the Grand Canyon.
May 29, 2024
Fascinating book about a fascinating woman. Mary Colter became a designer and architect when women couldn’t even vote. Her buildings are still found at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
March 19, 2016
I came across this book during my trip to Grand Canyon when I was visiting the bookstore at Tusayan ruin and museum. The first thought that went through my mind was: "What? A woman architect in the old days!!?" If you asked me to name one woman architect in the old times (before women were allowed to wear pants), I would have just looked at you clueless. (Sad how little we know about women's contribution in any field of our world or local history).
Mary Colter went to California School of Design and after apprenticing in an architect's office, she became an architect and interior decorator. Her passion in buildings and decoration reflected the Native American style. Her love affair with the Hopi and Navajo Natives arts started when one of her friends gave her Sioux drawings when she was in middle school. Later she was hired to work for the tycoons of her days: The Santa Fe Railway and Fred Harvey Company.
(Remember we are talking about the early 1900s when women had only one duty in the society: To create and pop out little Adams and Eves as fast as possible till the woman died and found peace in the afterlife).
Colter was an assertive tough cookie perfectionist at her job. Especially, that she was the only woman who had to supervise a lot of men were not used to kitchen fugitives or career women of their time.
She never married and it made me wonder if she had any admirers given all the men she was working with. (Yeah,I'm being nosy because there was no reference to this). ;)
She never gave up on her passion for design even at old age and was bossing around the guys from her wheelchair during the end of her life.
During a time when America was building foreign architectural styles such as Victorian,Roman,and Renaissance on the land, "Colter's philosophy was that a building should grow out of its setting, embodying the history and flavor of the location. It should belong to its environment as though indigenous to that spot. She could not visualize the design of a building or plan its decoration until she had thought out its "history"" (page 59).
I cannot agree more with her philosophy. I experienced this in Iran. The traditional architecture of Iran matches the energy signature of the land. which in the old days was swept over and serenaded in poetry, romantic literature, astrology, geometry, science, art, and mysticism. All these elements can be found in the traditional buildings of Iran. For example, Google and look at the buildings in Shiraz: 1) Nasir al-Mulk Mosque, 2) Eram Gardan, 3)Shapouri building and garden
Unfortunately, since the Iranians have a fetish for western everything, recent architecture has left traditional beauty in the past and opted for roman,modern, or ugly Bauhaus styles. It's like a drawer of mismatched socks and colors. When a building is not in harmony with its surroundings, culture, history, and etc., it becomes an eyesore.
Each country has a unique vibratory signature of the Motherland and Colter intuitively and intellectually understood this unspoken energy.
I highly recommend anyone who visits the southern rim of the Grand Canyon to read this book.
You will time-travel back to a period in America when railroad was the biggest invention for human mobility and the start of tourism, hotel businesses, and restaurants along the "3000 miles of hospitality" of Santa Fe railroad. This was before cars were invented by Ford.
You will learn how gradually the buildings came into existence in the south rim revealing Native arts to the business passengers and tourists. The humble buildings do want people to know about them. They are proud to represent the Native heritage. If they had tongues to speak, they would have been your tour guides and introduce themselves to you warmly, and explained how they came into existence within harmony of their natural surroundings through Colter's vision, and being the proud guardians of the beautiful Natives artwork.
This book is not about Colter's biography. There is about 10 pages maximum that talks about her childhood, family,personality and etc. sporadically through out the book.
I read this gem on my flight from Phoenix to Boston and on touch down, I was on the last page of the book. I look forward to returning to Arizona in the future when I've read a lot on the TRUE Americans: The Native Americans.
Meanwhile, till Arizona invites you to go there, Google Colter's "Inside Desert View Watchtower" images and enjoy the beautiful Hopi wall paintings done by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie.
Mary Colter went to California School of Design and after apprenticing in an architect's office, she became an architect and interior decorator. Her passion in buildings and decoration reflected the Native American style. Her love affair with the Hopi and Navajo Natives arts started when one of her friends gave her Sioux drawings when she was in middle school. Later she was hired to work for the tycoons of her days: The Santa Fe Railway and Fred Harvey Company.
(Remember we are talking about the early 1900s when women had only one duty in the society: To create and pop out little Adams and Eves as fast as possible till the woman died and found peace in the afterlife).
Colter was an assertive tough cookie perfectionist at her job. Especially, that she was the only woman who had to supervise a lot of men were not used to kitchen fugitives or career women of their time.
She never married and it made me wonder if she had any admirers given all the men she was working with. (Yeah,I'm being nosy because there was no reference to this). ;)
She never gave up on her passion for design even at old age and was bossing around the guys from her wheelchair during the end of her life.
During a time when America was building foreign architectural styles such as Victorian,Roman,and Renaissance on the land, "Colter's philosophy was that a building should grow out of its setting, embodying the history and flavor of the location. It should belong to its environment as though indigenous to that spot. She could not visualize the design of a building or plan its decoration until she had thought out its "history"" (page 59).
I cannot agree more with her philosophy. I experienced this in Iran. The traditional architecture of Iran matches the energy signature of the land. which in the old days was swept over and serenaded in poetry, romantic literature, astrology, geometry, science, art, and mysticism. All these elements can be found in the traditional buildings of Iran. For example, Google and look at the buildings in Shiraz: 1) Nasir al-Mulk Mosque, 2) Eram Gardan, 3)Shapouri building and garden
Unfortunately, since the Iranians have a fetish for western everything, recent architecture has left traditional beauty in the past and opted for roman,modern, or ugly Bauhaus styles. It's like a drawer of mismatched socks and colors. When a building is not in harmony with its surroundings, culture, history, and etc., it becomes an eyesore.
Each country has a unique vibratory signature of the Motherland and Colter intuitively and intellectually understood this unspoken energy.
I highly recommend anyone who visits the southern rim of the Grand Canyon to read this book.
You will time-travel back to a period in America when railroad was the biggest invention for human mobility and the start of tourism, hotel businesses, and restaurants along the "3000 miles of hospitality" of Santa Fe railroad. This was before cars were invented by Ford.
You will learn how gradually the buildings came into existence in the south rim revealing Native arts to the business passengers and tourists. The humble buildings do want people to know about them. They are proud to represent the Native heritage. If they had tongues to speak, they would have been your tour guides and introduce themselves to you warmly, and explained how they came into existence within harmony of their natural surroundings through Colter's vision, and being the proud guardians of the beautiful Natives artwork.
This book is not about Colter's biography. There is about 10 pages maximum that talks about her childhood, family,personality and etc. sporadically through out the book.
I read this gem on my flight from Phoenix to Boston and on touch down, I was on the last page of the book. I look forward to returning to Arizona in the future when I've read a lot on the TRUE Americans: The Native Americans.
Meanwhile, till Arizona invites you to go there, Google Colter's "Inside Desert View Watchtower" images and enjoy the beautiful Hopi wall paintings done by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie.
September 7, 2014
This book describes the career of Mary Colter (1869-1968), an architect, designer, and decorator for the Fred Harvey Company, which built hotels, restaurants, and other facilities to accommodate passengers on the Santa Fe Railway. A number of her projects are still standing, including several at the Grand Canyon. I bought this book there on a visit in—I'm embarrassed to say—1999. Of course I've always meant to read it, but the books on my shelves often get set aside in favor of those I get from the library. I finally read this in anticipation of a return trip to the Grand Canyon coming up soon. Ironically, I won't get to see any of her buildings. They're all on the South Rim, while I'll be on the North! But it was the principle of the thing, wanting to make sure I had read this before I was in the vicinity of some of her most famous work.
August 1, 2009
I purchased this book several years ago when we visited the Grand Canyon. We're going back in September & we're staying at the Bright Angel Lodge. I wanted to read this book to have a more comprehensive picture of this amazing architect. By reading this book I'm now excited about going to the Lodge & looking for some of her contributions. The book is interesting for anyone interested in railroads, the Southwest, the Grand Canyon or architecture.
June 24, 2011
My son bought this for me as a souvenir from his Grand Canyon filed trip. I finally got around to reading it and am so glad I did. I found it to be very interesting and made me want to visit the Grand Canyon to check out what's left of her buildings. It also made me wish I could have seen it during the heyday of the Fred Harvey company. The description of the Harvey Girls was really fascinating.
Read
February 20, 2008i am a constant student a design architecture. this limilt bio of mary colter is inspiring for all woman. as a man I would have loved to spend evening after work chatting about the channages of the day
Terris
Terris
Want to read
January 5, 2010Saw at G C bookstore
August 22, 2011
Colter was a designer-architect. I guess it's appropriate that the book was about the buildings she designed as much as, or more than, about her, personally.
November 25, 2019
I learned so much about the Santa Fe style and some railroad history as well.
August 26, 2013
A good book about a woman years & years ahead of her time. It also included many photos and details of her work.
October 31, 2013
Great biography of architect and interior designer in the 20's, 30's and 40's. Amazing spaces she designed.
January 12, 2016
I enjoyed learning more about this architect who was so influential at the Grand Canyon Village and with the Fred Harvey restaurants.
June 8, 2016
A visit to the Grand Canyon introduced me to Colter's amazing work. Loved the photography in the book.
September 22, 2016
A quick read and very informative about a fascinating genius.
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