Following the acquisition of California from Mexico, and Statehood in 1850, Americans emigrated to Southern California, and were intrigued with the ruins of the Spanish Missions they found. To them, these forgotten monuments were tokens of the former Spanish Empire that once ruled the area, and therefore served as a link to the grand cathedrals and rich architectural traditions of the European mainland. It was a sort of “street cred” for culturally insecure Americans.
One of the early promoters of preserving the missions was Charles Fletcher Lummis. In 1884, Lummis, who was living in Cincinnati, was offered a job with the Los Angeles Times. He accepted the position and set out on foot, with a mule, across a mostly undeveloped country. During his 143-day journey, he became enamored with the southwest and its Spanish and Native American roots.
After arrival in Southern California, Lummis became fascinated with the dilapidated remains of the Missions. He was one of the founding members of a group dedicated to preserving them, and served as its president. He noted that the historic structures "...were falling to ruin with frightful rapidity, their roofs being breached or gone, the adobe walls melting under the winter rains."
This interest in the Southwest was found in literature of the time as well. Ramona, an immensely popular 1884 novel, concerned a mixed-race Native American orphan girl who experiences racial discrimination. It’s a story of forbidden love, sort of a Romeo and Juliette for the Southwest. The novel’s romantic and salacious plot, set against the backdrop of a new American territory, had tremendous appeal, and made the novel a runaway blockbuster. The book’s publication coincided with the expansion of the railways into the Southwest, which brought tourists to the area, intent on visiting the locations featured in the novel.
The novel’s portrayal of the Spanish and Mexican Rancho culture of Southern California, and its focus on the Missions and the Franciscan order, created a cultural identity for the region; the Mission Revival style created the homes and businesses that allowed that identity to flourish. The Mission Revival architectural movement began with preservation as its focus, but the style broadened into homes and commercial buildings, reviving the colonial past while, in the process, inventing a uniquely American vernacular style. The style, adopted by the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroad companies as they expanded into the region and built commanding railway stations, like those in Los Angeles and San Diego, welcomed new emigrants to Southwest in grand style. Soon homes designed in the Mission Style proliferated; Sears and Roebuck & Co even had a kit that they sold plans for called the “Alhambra”.
Mission Style is typified by a flat planer front façade that echoes the massive fronts of the missions themselves. An arched parapet accentuates a central entry door below, and faux belltowers often anchor one side. Red clay roof tiles, thick stucco walls that replicated the traditional adobe construction of the region, and clay tile floors were common. Their facades are primarily unadorned stucco, unlike their highly decorated antecedents in Mexico City, Lima or Santiago. Since the missionaries were working far from the regional hubs of the Spanish Empire, higher-end building materials were non-existent. Therefore, the emphasis for the design of the Missions was to create a vast spiritual interior- so size was the priority, not fenestration.
Creator: Charles C. Pierce
This movement away from architectural ornamentation is a trend seen at the end of the Victorian era with the birth of both the Craftsman and Mission forms. Both originated in Southern California and, along with Prairie style, signaled the beginning of the modern era in architecture, and its simpler unadorned architectural forms.
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