Hodgin Hall, the University Building once called the Main Building or Administration Building, has stood on this campus since 1892. Completed in 1892, this was the first building constructed on the University of New Mexico campus and the university’s only building for almost a decade. Look at its original bones: Jesse Wheelock designed it in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, but structural problems with the roof led President William Tight to reshape it in 1908 in his preferred Pueblo Revival idiom.
That 1908 remodeling gave Hodgin Hall stepped, asymmetrical massing, stuccoed walls, vigas, and other details drawn from traditional Pueblo and mission architecture. As one of the first Pueblo Revival buildings in New Mexico, this hall helped establish the style both at the university and regionally. The building nearly disappeared in the 1970s when it was slated for demolition, but alumni fundraising preserved and restored it.
Since 1983 it has housed the university’s Alumni Association and Alumni Relations offices. Notice the stepped forms, the stuccoed walls, the vigas — proof of every rescue since 1892.