Nationally May is Preservation month. Each May, Santa Fe’s preservation organizations unite to honor the city’s heritage and building traditions. The City of Santa Fe, Historic Santa Fe Foundation, and Old Santa Fe Association co-host the Heritage Preservation Awards at San Miguel Chapel, recognizing local architects, homeowners, and professionals. Separately, the State Historic Preservation Office’s Cultural Properties Review Committee presents its annual statewide awards—a tradition spanning over 50 years. To further celebrate this month and foster more opportunity to learn and discuss preservation-related issues, Historic Santa Fe Foundation partnered with the New Mexico History Museum and others in 2025 to present ‘Preserving Place: The Santa Fe Symposium’—a day-long event exploring preservation challenges and relevance through expert discussions. In 2026 we will host the next symposium titled ‘Preserving Place: The Santa Fe Continuum’.

The upcoming ‘Preserving Place: The Santa Fe Continuum’ explores the aspects of Santa Fe that have made it an attractive tourist and re-location destination for decades while looking at the many dualities that may create the disconnect in communication and social cohesiveness resulting from preserving the aesthetics primarily of the architecture of downtown Santa Fe. Preservation and its intersection with social issues proves to be a highly relevant topic especially on the occasion of the revisions of and changes to Santa Fe’s General Plan and Land Use Code. This year we want to explore the connections between the various sections of town – downtown, midtown, and southside and growth in the surrounding County; how the City and the County work together in governing this development, and what can be done to connect these areas and communicate more about issues in the various neighborhoods and communities in Santa Fe. The goal is to foster discussion about social, planning, development, and architecture-related issues around housing, development, adaptive reuse, and designing for the New Mexico climate using our preservation of the historical character of Santa Fe as a basis for these discussions. This event will take place at the New Mexico History Museum in a day-long event of 3-4 panels and an open forum

Santa Fe stands at a pivotal moment. The Santa Fe Continuum convenes civic leaders, architects/builders, developers, preservationists, and community voices to explore how our past informs an equitable and sustainable future. The choices we make now about housing, urban design, and growth will determine not only what our city looks like, but who can call it home. Continuum 2026 brings us together to ask a shared question: How do we preserve Santa Fe’s sense of place while addressing issues of land use, growth, and affordability?

The current partners for this event are: Historic Santa Fe Foundation, New Mexico History Museum, Cornerstones Community Partnerships, among others. Sponsors include Avalon/Clearstead.

More information on panels available in late March. To stay informed and join the notification list when tickets are available, email info@historicsantafe.org.
STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. Inquire at info@historicsantafe.org.

View the panels, slide presentations, and audio recordings from the 2025 Preserving Place: The Santa Fe Symposium.