Well Built in Albuquerque: The Architecture of the Healthseeker Era, 1900-1940
This thesis examines the architectural and cultural landscape of tuberculosis in Albuquerque during the first decades of the twentieth century. Inspired by a general belief in the healing powers of high-altitude desert air and sunshine, Albuquerque fashioned itself into a popular health resort for consumptives. In 'Well Built in Albuquerque: The Architecture of the Healthseeker Era, 1900-1940,' I argue that the disease inspired a new and distinctive health landscape in the city that included sanatoriums, boarding houses, and rustic campsites. The architecture, design, and spatial patterning of this landscape reflected prevailing medical and social ideologies concerning both the disease and its cure. Chief among them were a fanatical confidence in the curative properties of climate, a growing national concern with contagion, health discrimination based on social class and stage of disease, and a later dedication to medical science over nature. This study adds to the small body of existing literature on the architecture and landscape of American sanatoriums, and contributes new insights to the historical record of New Mexico and Albuquerque.
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