architecture albuquerque

FORGOTTEN: First National Motor Bank

FORGOTTEN: First National Motor Bank

Vacant since 2012, the First National Motor bank was designed by architect Harvey Hoshour in 1974 as an addition to the already built First National Bank (1963. Flatow, Moore, Bryan and Fairburn) and proceeded to win an AIA Merit Award in the same year. Hoshour was a notable architect in Albuquerque and designed other works such as the First Unitarian Church (1964), UNM Health Sciences Learning Resources Center (1977), and the Encino Crescent office building (1965). The brutalism design was complementary to the modern/postmodern architecture that was being constructed throughout the 50s-70s as a result of the post WWII economic boom in Albuquerque.

Today the bank sits abandoned and boarded up at the corner of Copper on San Mateo just south of Central.