Site Report No. 5: Dwan Light Sanctuary, NM

Dwan Light Sanctuary is located on the campus of the United World College (founded by philanthropist Armand Hammer) in Montezuma a few miles north of Las Vegas.  In 1994 Virginia Dwan, a patron of artists and gallery owner in New York, wanted to create a place for quiet reflection for people of all beliefs and began a collaboration with solar spectrum artist, Charles Ross and architect Laban Wingert.  In the Sangre de Christo mountains, driving past several college buildings up a dirt road on a hill sits the Sanctuary.  Walking up a winding path you come upon a round structure surrounded by pine trees.  Inside a round chamber with sloping walls, Ross uses twenty-four large prisms in the apses and ceiling to track the seasonal angles of the sun.  Ross “calculated the building’s geometry and orientation to align the prisms to the sun, moon, and stars and to capture their light rays from sunrise to sunset.”  We waited to catch moments of sunlight in between the passing clouds of thunderstorms.  The rays moved along the walls and floors in brilliant play.  It was a place of enjoyment and it seemed as if one could spend hours there.