Architecture Of The California Missions

The Architectural History of the California Missions

(1769-1823)

You may already know that there are 21 missions today in the state of California. Starting in San Diego all the way past San Francisco, the missions remind us of an earlier time when the Spanish were colonizing Alta California. The California missions were started because the Spanish king wanted to create permanent settlements in the area of the New World called Alta California. The decision to create Spanish missions in California was political as well as religious. The Spanish government wanted to gain control in California before the Russians did. They also wanted to spread Christianity among the Native Americans (Johnson, page 5). Most of today's missions are active churches, some have held mass non-stop since their founding. Others are part of the California State Park system. All are modern day treasures and a path backwards in time to our beginnings. They have influenced many aspects of our history, and continue to be an important part of our state today. Thousands of people annually visit the Missions and they find its architecture beautiful and interesting. The architecture of the California missions was influenced by many factors like the limitation in the materials, the lack of skilled workers, and the desire of the founding priest to imitate the structure of his Spanish homeland.

The first thing they would do in the construction of missions was to find a location. Then they would decide what the position would be so that they would take the best advantage of the sun's position for interior illumination (Baer, page 42). After the position, they would lay out a map describing where everything would be located and constructed; starting from the priest's quarters, refectory, convent, workshops, kitchens, soldiers' and servants' living quarters, storerooms, court or patio, and other additional living quarters. The patio was one of the most important structures of missions; they were usually in the shape of a square, even though they were almost never a perfect square because they did not have the right tools to measure so they would measure the dimensions by foot. They would use this location to have religious celebrations, and other festivities; they would also use it as a refuge in case of attacks. Generally the basic elements found in the California missions are as follow: A patio with a fountain or a garden, solid walls, buttresses, arched corridors, curved or pedimented gables, terraced bell towers or bell wall, wide projecting eaves, broad underdecorated wall surfaces, and low sloping tile roofs (Newcomb, page ix). Every element of the mission had its purpose for example the patio had many uses like I explained earlier, and the buttresses were used as a support for the walls (Johnson, page 50).

When missions were being started the materials were hard to be imported, this forced the fathers to make use of simple building materials and methods in the construction of mission structures. They had to obtain the materials that they needed from the land around them. Five basic materials were used in the construction of the missions: adobe, timber, stone, brick, and tile (Baer, page 42). For the walls they would usually use adobe. Adobe was made from a combination of soil and water, with chaff, straw, or manure so that it would hold the mixture together. The mixture was poured into wood brick molds that were arranged in rows, and that were leveled by hand. They were later left under the sun so that they would dry; the workers would sometimes imprint their hand or foot on the brick before it dried. The bricks would measure 22 by 11 inches, they were 2-5 inches thick, and they weighed 20 - 40 pounds, this made it easy to carry and handle during the construction process (Egenhoff, page 149). Because the use of water was such an important part of the process it was usually done near a water facility like a spring or creek. Even though many of the adobe structures were replaced by ones of bricks, adobe was still the main material used in the construction of the missions.

Windows were kept small and there was not very many of them. They would place them high on walls to protect themselves from attacks. Windows were the only source of lighting the inside of the missions other than the handmade candles they had. To take the greatest advantage of natural sun light they would make sure that when they constructed the missions they placed the windows at an appropriate place (Baer page28).

The padres (priest) were not trained in building design, so their only option was to create similar structures to the ones they remembered from their homelands. The missions demonstrate a strong Roman influence in their design and construction techniques, just like many of the buildings in Spain (Camphouse, page70). One of the main design elements that the missions adopted from Spain was its church belfry. There are four types of types of them: the basic belfry, the espadana, the campanile, and the campanario. The basic belfry was a bell hanging from a beam which was supported by two upright posts. The belfry usually stood