El Paso: Himalayan Architecture

This afternoon, while thumbing through the Southwestern Historical Quarterly (April 2018), I came across a photograph of Bhutanese-style buildings on the campus of what is now the University of Texas at El Paso. The photo was taken around 1935, when the school was still known as the State School of Mines and Metallurgy.

I immediately started researching the topic and learned that the buildings were designed in the "dzong" style, the architectural tradition of the Bhutanese monasteries of the Himalayas. I also learned that UTEP and the Kingdom of Bhutan have a special relationship and that the Bhutanese prince actually visited El Paso a few years ago.

When Martina and I lived in Thailand, we wanted to visit Bhutan, but the cost of a visa was very much out of our price range at the time, so we never made it there. Well, nowadays a little piece of Bhutan is not so far out of reach. The next time we're out in West Texas, we'll have to head over to the UTEP campus to see the "dzong" architecture and visit the Chenrezig Himalayan Cultural Center of El Paso.

Here is a short video about the Bhutanese architecture in El Paso. Watch for the Bhutanese-style parking garage, which is the only one of its kind in the world.