La Luz

In 1967, two young developers, Ray Graham III and Didier Raven, chose an equally young Antoine Predock to plan and design the residential community of La Luz (The Light) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Predock’s first independent commission received national acclaim for its skilled application of contemporary theories of urban planning and for its convincing synthesis of modern and regional forms of architecture. La Luz catapulted Predock to early fame and launched him on a career that took him from New Mexico and the American Southwest to projects around the world, from North America to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia […] In retrospect, the success of La Luz seems inevitable. But this was not the case when it was going up in 1968-1974. Only the optimism of youth explains the confidence with which the developers and the architect undertook this housing experiment on Albuquerque's west side, across the Rio Grande and eight miles by car from the Downtown. Now densely built up with tract homes, shopping malls, and car dealerships, the area was mostly desert grassland in 1967, with little except cattle and fences between the node of commercial activity just off I-40 to the south and the village of Corrales another seven miles to the north. Sceptics scoffed at the notion that families might want to live in such an unconventional subdivision, so far outside the city. En 1967, dos jóvenes promotores, Ray Graham III y Didier Raven, eligieron a un igualmente joven Antoine Predock para planificar y diseñar la comunidad residencial de La Luz (La Luz) en Albuquerque, Nuevo México. El primer encargo independiente de Predock recibió elogios nacionales por su hábil aplicación de las teorías contemporáneas de planificación urbana y por su convincente síntesis de formas arquitectónicas modernas y regionales.