Lembke House
312 Laguna St., SW, Albuquerque, NMOne of the purest residential examples of the Le Corbusier International Style in New Mexico, the Lembke House was designed by Townes & Funk, an Amarillo, Texas architectural firm. The house was constructed in the depths of the Depression as a speculative venture in the new, slowly developing Huning Castle Addition (now generally known as the Country Club area) by building contractor Charles Lembke, its original occupant, in 1932-33. Boldly different, with its curved three-story glass brick bay and pure horizontal planes, from the neighboring southwestern styled buildings, it demonstrates an attempt to bring a fresh, modern style of architecture to Albuquerque.
Exposing interior spaces to abundant sources of natural light by an unusual window design and incorporating a powerful cooling and ventilation system, this house provided an unusual and practical answer to the housing needs of the Southwest. It is a fine example of its style, in a graceful, park-like setting.
The current owners recognized the particular quality of their house, and have sought to enhance it through a careful preservation program, and through choice of period furnishings that repeat the streamlined, modernistic quality of the house.
Charles Lembke, the contractor-owner, is the son of a stone-maker from Indiana who stopped in Santa Fe to work on a new capitol building and later started the Edward Lembke Co., a construction firm that worked on Hodgin Hall, one of the first buildings on the University of New Mexico campus (National Register). Charles Lembke graduated from the University in 1912, with the school's first civil engineering degree; after service in World War I, he went into business with his father and eventually took over the firm, still one of Albuquerque's most important. Lembke has played a large part in the building of modern Albuquerque; appropriately, this house which he built for his family shows his interest in new designs and techniques which continues to the present.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.