Hopi House is located on the South Rim of the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

, within

Grand Canyon National Park Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona, is the 15th site in the United States to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often consider ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. Built in 1904 as concessioner facilities at the South Rim were being developed, it is the first of eight projects at the Grand Canyon that were designed by architect

Mary Colter Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

, along with

Bright Angel Lodge Bright Angel Lodge is a hotel complex at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Designed by architect Mary Jane Colter, the lodge is a complex of cabins around a central lodge building, directly on the edge of t ...

, Hermit's Rest, Lookout Studio,

Phantom Ranch Phantom Ranch is a lodge inside Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It sits at the bottom of Grand Canyon, on the east side of Bright Angel Creek, a little over half a mile north of the Creek's confluence with the Colorado River. Opened in ...

Desert View Watchtower Desert View Watchtower, also known as the Indian Watchtower at Desert View, is a -high stone building located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon within Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, United States. The tower is located at Desert View, ...

, Colter Hall and Victor Hall, (the latter two being employee dormitories). Hopi House was built by the

Fred Harvey Company The Fred Harvey Company was the owner of the Harvey House chain of restaurants, hotels and other hospitality industry businesses alongside railroads in the Western United States. It was founded in 1876 by Fred Harvey to cater to the growing n ...

as a market for Native American crafts, made by artisans on the site. The

Hopi The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the Unite ...

, as the historic inhabitants of the area, were chosen as the featured artisans, and the building was designed to closely resemble a traditional Hopi

pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

. Hopi House opened on January 1, 1905, two weeks before the

El Tovar Hotel The El Tovar Hotel, also known simply as El Tovar, is a former Harvey House hotel situated directly on the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States. The hotel was designed by Charles Whittlesey, Chief Architect for the Atchison ...

, located just to the west, was opened.

Design

Mary Colter had worked on a number of projects for the Fred Harvey Company, principally as an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

interior designer Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...

. She was particularly successful in a similar project, the Indian Building at the Fred Harvey Company's Alvarado Hotel (now demolished) in

Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

. Colter planned Hopi House as a sort of living museum, in which Hopi Indians could live while making and selling traditional crafts. The structure was based on Colter's interpretation of the Hopi dwelling at

Oraibi, Arizona Oraibi, also referred to as Old Oraibi, is a Hopi village in Navajo County, Arizona, United States, in the northeastern part of the state. Known as Orayvi by the native inhabitants, it is on Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation near Kykotsmovi Vil ...

. The ethnohistorically-correct structure was at the time of its construction the first introduction for many park visitors to the architecture and life of the native peoples of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. A variety of interior spaces provide museum, sales and demonstration space.Berke, Arnold: "Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest", pp. 64–68. Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.

Description

Hopi House Grand Canyon Village 09 2017 5290

Hopi House is a stepped structure executed in

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

of varying size, texture and coursing. The roof surfaces function as terraces in the same manner as traditional Hopi dwellings. Windows are small and sparse, with doorways on the same small scale. Interior walls are plastered with

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

, while ceilings are composed of saplings, twigs and grass covered with mud. Fireplaces are located in the corners of rooms. The old staircase to the second floor is decorated with murals by an unknown Hopi artist. The second floor houses a shrine, called a

kiva A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground, ...

, with Hopi religious artifacts. Floors on the second floor were made to look like adobe but were actually cement, which later in the 1930s the floor was laid with hard wood flooring. The third floor was used as an apartment for the building's former managers. It has since been updated and is now used as storage but a number of original features have been preserved. Most of the original furnishings in the main level, picked out by Colter, have been preserved.

Historic designation

Hopi House is a component of the multi-site Mary Jane Colter Buildings National Historic Landmark, It was incorporated into the

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

group on May 28, 1987. Hopi House and the Lookout Studio are also major contributing structures in the Grand Canyon Village National Historic Landmark District.

References

External links

Parkitecture in Western National Parks: Hopi House

''Architecture in the Parks'' * {{Authority control Buildings and structures in Grand Canyon National Park Mary Colter buildings Hopi Pueblo Revival architecture in Arizona Rustic architecture in Arizona Fred Harvey Company Grand Canyon Park buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona National Register of Historic Places in Coconino County, Arizona National Historic Landmarks in Arizona Buildings and structures in Coconino County, Arizona 1905 establishments in Arizona Territory Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona