California

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1888

California Missions and the Genesis of the Mission Revival Style

The Spanish colonial missions in the American Southwest, built in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, have left a lasting impression on the American cultural landscape and psyche. As a colonial project, they subjugated Indigenous populations and coalesced Spain’s control over vast territory. As conurbations, they now form the nucleus of many modern cities. In terms of their built forms, they were notably the inspiration for the Mission Revival style, an architectural and decorative arts idiom that emerged in the late nineteenth century.

Googie Architecture

In the postwar period, with industry in California booming, migrating workers flocked to the state, more than doubling the population of Los Angeles between 1940 and 1960. This rapid growth led to the expansion of the suburbs, and the once vast tracts of orange groves surrounding the city of Los Angeles became the sites of new housing developments. Simultaneously, the construction of a network of freeways, funded by the 1947 Collier-Burns Highway Act, facilitated transport around this decentralized metropolis.

California Missions

Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century and extending into the early nineteenth century, the Spanish crown strategically consolidated its power in its Nueva España colony of Alta California by allowing Catholic priests to establish mission churches. By 1823, twenty-one missions dotted the California coastline from San Diego to Sonoma. Along with the presidio fort and pueblo town, the mission was the third institution that had proven successful as a colonizing method in other Spanish dominions including Mexico and South America.

Plaza de Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Plaza Historic District, once called the El Pueblo de Los Ángeles State Historic Park, and now known also as El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument, is a historic district located at the oldest section of Los Angeles. It served as the city's core plaza under Spanish rule (1781–1821), Mexican leadership (1821–1847), and the United States government (after 1847) for much of the nineteenth century. Since its inception, the Plaza de Los Angeles has been used in a variety of ways, reflecting ongoing shifts in the needs and composition of the surrounding community.

Mission Santa Barbara

Established in December 1786, Mission Santa Barbara was constructed by Franciscan missionaries, craftsmen, and Chumash laborers between 1789 and 1833. While many of the original colonial buildings have been razed, the 1820 church and portions of the original convento survive. The central patio garden, constructed in 1872, became a formative model in the development of mission gardens during the twentieth century.

Mission Inn Hotel & Spa

The largest and best-known example of Mission Revival architecture in California is the Mission Inn, located in Riverside, approximately 55 miles east of Los Angeles. Developed over decades by owner Frank Augustus Miller (1858–1935), the luxury hotel was initially constructed in 1903. By 1932, the compound sprawled to encompass an entire city block (more than three acres) in downtown Riverside, at the heart of the commercial center.

A. K. Smiley Public Library

One early example of the eclecticism of the Mission Revival style is the A. K. Smiley Public Library in Redlands, a municipality located 65 miles east of Los Angeles. Many notables, including philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, patronized the library at the turn of the twentieth century, and the building was credited with bringing notoriety to the small town (population 4,797 in 1900). Before construction even commenced, an 1897 article in the Los Angeles Times declared: “The structure will be a mammoth affair, and will be designed in the mission style of architecture.

Mission San Miguel Arcángel

On July 25, 1797, Father Fermín Lasuén established the sixteenth mission in Alta California along the Salinas River. Built 35 miles east of the coastline, it is one of the few missions sited so far inland, the intention being to spread the mission system, as a colonization tool, into the hinterland. Mission sites were selected according to three criteria: proximity to water, availability of arable land, and adjacency to Native populations.

Mission Santa Barbara Church

Known as the Queen of the Missions, the Mission Santa Barbara Church bears an applied temple front masterfully executed by stonemason Jose Antonio Ramirez (1762–1827), one of the most productive builders in Alta California. Mission Santa Barbara was established on December 16, 1786 by Father Fermín Lasuén as the system’s tenth outpost, roughly equidistant from the most southern (San Diego) and northern (San Francisco) missions at the time.

Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo

When it was established on June 3, 1770, as the second in the mission system founded by Friar Junípero Serra, San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo was at the Spanish colony’s northernmost extent, in present-day Monterey. Like the first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the religious compound was originally sited within the presidio, but the location was arid and poor for agriculture.

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