TheMission Revival style was part of anarchitectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for therevival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th centurySpanish missions in California. It is sometimes termedCalifornia Mission Revival, particularly when used elsewhere, such as inNew Mexico andTexas which have their own unique regional architectural styles. In Australia, the style is known asSpanish Mission.[1]
The Mission Revival movement was most popular between 1890 and 1915, in numerous residential, commercial and institutional structures, particularly schools andrailroad depots.[2]
All of the 21 FranciscanAlta California missions (established 1769–1823), including their chapels and support structures, shared certain design characteristics. These commonalities arose because the Franciscanmissionaries all came from the same places of previous service in Spain and colonial Mexico City inNew Spain. The New Spain religious buildings the founding Franciscan saw and emulated were of theSpanish Colonial style, which in turn was derived from Renaissance and Baroque examples in Spain. Also, the limited availability and variety of building materials besidesadobe near mission sites or imported to Alta California limited design options. Finally, the missionaries and theindigenous Californians had minimal construction skills and experience with European designs.[3]
The missions' style of necessity and security evolved around an enclosedcourtyard, using massive adobe walls with broad unadorned plaster surfaces, limitedfenestration anddoor piercing, low-pitched roofs with projecting wide eaves and non-flammableclay roof tiles, and thickarches springing frompiers. Exterior walls were coated with whiteplaster (stucco), which with wide side eaves shielded theadobebrick walls from rain. Other features included long exteriorarcades, anenfilade of interior rooms andhalls, semi-independentbell-gables, and at more prosperous missions curved 'Baroque'gables on the principal facade withtowers.
These architectural elements were replicated, in varying degrees, accuracy, and proportions, in the new Mission Revival structures. Simultaneous with the original style's revival was an awareness in California of the actual missions fading into ruins and their restoration campaigns, and nostalgia in the quickly changing state for a 'simpler time' as the novelRamona popularized at the time. Contemporary construction materials and practices, earthquake codes, and building uses render the structural and religious architectural components primarily aesthetic decoration, while the service elements such as tile roofing, solar shielding of walls and interiors, and outdoor shade arcades and courtyards are still functional.
The Mission Revival style of architecture, and subsequent Spanish Colonial Revival style, have historical, narrative—nostalgic, cultural—environmental associations, and climate appropriateness that have made for a predominant historical regionalvernacular architecture style in theSouthwestern United States, especially in California.
Several buildings atQueens College inQueens, New York, including the main administration building, Jefferson Hall, constructed in 1907.
Several buildings atMenaul School inAlbuquerque,New Mexico, including Old Brick, Donaldson Hall, Bennett Hall, and Teacher's Hall, all constructed between 1890 and 1924.[11]
Eleven railroad stations built from 1926 to 1929 by architect Arthur Gerber in an adoptation referred to as "Insull Spanish" in the Chicago suburbs and two in Northwest Indiana. TheBeverly Shores, Indiana station has been restored and is the best example.[12]
The Main Building atAuckland Grammar School in Auckland, New Zealand, built in 1916, was designed by Auckland architects Arnold and Abbott in the Spanish Mission style, inspired by their travels in California[13]
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Berkeley, California, designed by William Curlett, built 1902, among the first buildings built in the Mission Revival style in California.
Many Catholic churches in the southwestern United States also employ elements of this style.
^Lacey, Stephen (2007-11-01)."Spanish mission style".The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved2022-09-25.
^Weitze, p. 14: "Railroad literature described the missions as 'Worthy a glance from the tourists [sic] eye,' with theSouthern Pacific, from 1888 to 1890, publishing numerous pamphlets that included sections on the missions."
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