Acoma museum set to open on May 27

After more than a week's worth of work, Pasquale Concho chips away at a stone to place at the base of the hornos, or oven, that he is building Thursday at the Sky City Cultural Center. Concho is one of only a few oven builders who uses only traditional methods of construction. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

SKY CITY, PUEBLO OF ACOMA — The new $10.4 million Sky City Cultural Center, which houses the Haaku Museum, opens to the public on May 27.

The opening ceremonies and events through May 29 include American Indian dances, demonstration and films as well as a by-invitation-only fund-raiser and silent auction.

Director of the center, Brian D. Vallo, said the new facilities replace the old tourist and visitor's center that was burned to the ground in 2000.

Two architectural firms from Santa Fe joined together and were selected out of dozens of inquiries and submissions responding to bid requests from the tribe.

Work started on replacing the original center in 2001 and evolved through focus groups, visits to Acoma villages, communities and listening to everyone from children to the elders, said Sarah Easterson-Bond, of Wood, Metal, Concrete architect firm.

Vallo said working with the architects, Easterson-Bond and Barbara Felix of Barbara Felix Architecture and Design, was an intense learning experience.

"We learned about process," he said. "We gathered input from the (Acoma) community and the way architects interpret design ideas and the desires of the tribe."

"The Acoma people are very passionate about their culture and we learned a lot by listening to them," Felix said.

The new center is 40,000 square feet on two stories, with about 22,000 square feet of that dedicated to the museum on the northeast corner of the facilities, Vallo said.

A gift of $1 million was made to the museum as an endowment and in the next five years Vallo said the center hopes to raise another $4 million for a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to continue the work of the museum.

The center includes a theater, which will be used for American Indian readings, poetry, lectures, training sessions and American Indian films, Vallo said.

In the basement is the first-ever tribal archives including humidity controlled atmosphere room for storage of artifacts and a clean room for restoration, he said.

Tribal members have been bringing hundreds of items to the center and giving or loaning them for archival purposes, including historical photos, documents, leather goods, different types of artifacts and pottery, Vallo said.

"We are taking everything," he said.

Eventually there will be Acoma artist-created bronze sculptures lining the front entrance to the center, as well as other works.

The museum's name, "Haaku," means "a place prepared." "We wanted the center to help people feel like they had come home from a journey," Felix said.

Vallo said the story of the Acoma people going on a journey and arriving I the valley ended when the people felt they had found "a place prepared," for them.

"This feeling was incorporated into the design," Felix said.

Many of the windows in the entrance and above the museum have "micaseous" flakes embedded in the glass to imitate the thin sheets of mica Acomas used to use for windows. It also helps as a natural light filter for the museum.

Vallo said the center's curatorial staff has a goal of repatriating 100,000 significant items to the museum in its first year of operation.

"There are 748,000 items that we know of out there and not all will be able to be repatriated," he said.

From January through March the center logged 66,000 visitors, the most ever in a quarter, Vallo said.

There are currently 41 permanent employees, with an expectation for there to be 51 by the end of the summer and seven seasonal employees, Vallo said.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: tiffin.independent@yahoo.com