Part of the Spanish missions in California series
Architecture of the California missions
Mission Revival Style architecture
California mission clash of cultures

San Gabriel Civic Auditorium (1927), San Gabriel, California, an example of Mission Revival Style architecture.

The Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century and drew inspiration from the early Spanish missions in California. The movement enjoyed its greatest popularity between 1890 and 1915, though numerous modern residential, commercial, and institutional structures (particularly schools and railroad depots) display this instantly-recognizable architectural style.^[1] The Mission Inn in Riverside, California is generally considered the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States.^[2]

[edit] Mission Style Characteristics

A view looking down an exterior corredor at Mission San Fernando Rey de España, a common architectural feature of the Spanish Missions that is often emulated in Mission Revival Style architecture.

All of California's missions shared certain design characteristics, owing both to the limited selection of building materials available to the founding padres and an overall lack of advanced construction experience. Each installation utilized massive walls with broad, unadorned surfaces and limited fenestration, wide, projecting eaves, and low-pitched clay tile roofs. Other features included long, arcaded corridors, piered arches, and curved gables. Exterior walls were coated with plaster (stucco) to shield the adobe bricks beneath from the elements.

Each of these elements are replicated, to varying degrees, in Mission Revival buildings. Modern construction materials and building practices render these characteristics largely cosmetic.

Give me neither Romanesque nor Gothic;

much less Italian Renaissance,

and least of all English Colonial —

this is California — give me Mission.

Anonymous, 1924^[3]

[edit] Structures designed in the Mission Revival Style

• Stanford University's main quad in Palo Alto, California, completed in 1891
• Southern Pacific Railroad depot in Burlingame, California, completed in 1894
• Santa Fe Railway Depot in San Juan Capistrano, California, completed in 1894
• Castañeda Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico, completed in 1898
• Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, completed in 1902 (demolished in 1970)
• Union Station in San Diego, California, completed in 1915
• California Baptist University in Riverside, California, the original school buildings built for Neighbors of Woodcraft, completed in 1921
• Caliente Railroad Depot in Caliente, Nevada, completed in 1923
• San Gabriel Civic Auditorium in San Gabriel, California, completed in 1927
• Mission Inn in Riverside, California, completed in 1932 ^[4]
• Villa Rockledge in Laguna Beach, California, completed in 1935 ^[5]
• Canoga Mission Gallery in Canoga Park, California, completed in 1936
• Arrowhead Springs Resort & Hotel in San Bernardino, California.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• Mediterranean Revival Style architecture
• Pueblo Revival Style architecture
• Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture

[edit] References

[edit] Further Reading

• Gustafson, Lee and Phil Serpico (1999). Santa Fe Coast Lines Depots: Los Angeles Division. Acanthus Press, Palmdale, CA. ISBN 0-88418-003-4. 
• Jones, R. (1991). The History of Villa Rockledge. American National Research Institute, Laguna Beach, CA. 
• Weitze, Karen J. (1984). California's Mission Revival. Hennessy & Ingalls, Inc., Los Angeles, CA. ISBN 0-912158-89-1. 
• Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8. 

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mission Revival Style architecture

• William J. Dodd~American Architect and Designer No longer active site. Redirect to William J. Dodd
• Hewn and Hammered dedicated to discussion of the American Arts & Crafts movement and its Mission Revival offshoot