Spanish Mission architecture

The Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century for a colonial style's revivalism and reinterpretation, which drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California.

The Mission Revival movement enjoyed its greatest popularity between 1890 and 1915, in numerous residential, commercial, and institutional structures – particularly schools and railroad depots – which used this easily recognizable architectural style. It evolved into and was subsumed by the more articulated Spanish Colonial Revival Style, established in 1915 at the Panama–California Exposition.

All of the 21 Franciscan Alta California missions (established 1769—1823), including their chapels and support structures, shared certain design characteristics. These commonalities arose because the Franciscan missionaries all came from the same places of previous service in Spain and colonial Mexico City in New Spain. The New Spain religious buildings the founding Franciscan saw and emulated were of the Spanish Colonial style, which in turn was derived from Renaissance and Baroque examples in Spain. Also, the limited availability and variety of building materials besides adobe near mission sites or imported to Alta California limited design options. Finally, the missionaries and their indigenous Californian workforce had minimal construction skills and experience.

The missions' style of necessity and security evolved around an enclosed courtyard, using massive adobe walls with broad unadorned plaster surfaces, limited fenestration and door piercing, low-pitched roofs with projecting wide eaves and non-flammable clay roof tiles, and thick arches springing from piers. Exterior walls were coated with white plaster (stucco), which with wide side eaves shielded the adobe brick walls from rain. Other features included long exterior arcades, an enfilade of interior rooms and halls, semi-independent bell gables, and at more prosperous missions curved 'Baroque' gables on the principal facade with towers.

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