A34: New Mexico Dining Room, c. 1940

Narcissa Niblack Thorne, creator of the Thorne Rooms, combined a deep knowledge of design history with a vivid imaginative sensibility. In the 1930s, she assembled a team of skilled artisans in Chicago to construct a series of intricately detailed interiors at the scale of one inch to one foot (1:12).

Conceived as a visual history of interior design, the rooms are at once scholarly and inventive. Meticulously researched and carefully composed, they balance historical accuracy with artistic interpretation. Each atmospheric interior feels like a stage set awaiting its occupants—two parts fantasy, one part history, and entirely absorbing.

Entry from Fannia Weingartner, Miniature Rooms: The Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2nd ed. (The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004):

34: New Mexico Dining Room, c. 1940
The unique blend of Spanish and American Indian cultures that distinguishes the Southwest is illustrated in this New Mexican interior. The dining room created here by Mrs. Thorne was inspired by modern New Mexican versions of the missions and haciendas constructed with European and American Indian techniques by the Spanish who settled New Mexico as ranchers, miners, and farmers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The thick walls—made of adobe bricks laid in mud mortar, mud-plastered, and white-washed—of the interiors that served as models for Mrs. Thorne’s room protected the inhabitants from the extreme heat and cold of the desert. Mud also covered the roof, supported by vigas, or large ceiling beams made of native pine. Between the beams can be seen latillas, aspen or cedar saplings arranged in a herringbone pattern, a technique developed originally to insulate the rooms and to prevent dirt from sifting down from the mud roof. The floor was also made of earth, painted and polished. The traditional beehive or semicircular corner fireplace recalls a shape incorporated by Pueblo Indians in their structures, some of which Mrs. Thorne included in the scene outside the window.
The furniture in this room was inspired by examples used in twentieth-century New Mexican homes. Made of pine, oak, and walnut, these substantial pieces, with their simple, rectangular shapes and carved and painted decorations, reflect Mexican and Spanish prototypes. The tin shrine over the sideboard, the votive figure on the mantel, and the sconces flanking the doorway are Mexican in design. Much of the silver in this room, as well as the pottery and rugs, was found in Mexico City.
Through the doorway at the right is a tiled hallway with a staircase.
This room measures 12 x 17 x 16 3/4 inches.