New Mexico Museum of Art

The building came first, and it still makes the argument. Designed by architect Isaac Rapp and completed in 1917, the New Mexico Museum of Art drew its façade from the mission churches of Acoma, San Felipe, Cochiti, Laguna, Santa Ana, and Pecos — Pueblo Revival architecture as a deliberate act of cultural synthesis. The collection inside now exceeds 20,000 works. Georgia O'Keeffe, Ansel Adams, Maria Martinez, the Taos Society of Artists — the Southwest's own canon, assembled in one place, one block off the Plaza.