Mary Colter: The forgotten architect of the US Southwest

Mary Colter: The forgotten architect of the US Southwest Santi Rodriguez/Alamy Mary Colter: The woman who shaped the US Southwest The pioneering architect celebrated Indigenous design and culture at a time when most Americans had little or no concept of how Native Americans lived. Though white, Colter was a lifelong student of Native American art and architecture, and her "vision" of the Southwest helped educate tourists about Native American culture. Natural History Archive/Alamy Colter was a rare breed: a white woman in a male-dominated field who rejected European design to honour Native American culture Colter's first assignment for Fred Harvey was to design the interior of the Indian Building at the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. David Wall/Alamy Colter hired Hopi artist Fred Kabotie to paint designs on the interior of the Desert Watchtower The Watchtower's lobby recalls a kiva, a circular ceremonial space found in Pueblo culture. Echoing the concerns of many that Colter commodified Native American culture, Kabotie "had a problem with taking things from ancestral sites and using them here at the Watchtower".