The California missions are the cathedrals of the New World. They were built under the direction of the adventurous padres who braved the hardships of the New World and organized an existing agrarian culture to produce viable military, commercial, and religious centers. Even though created with primitive means from mud and wood, these structures were elegant and represented the taste and culture of the Spanish empire at its height. With nearly 800 photos and plans, this book visually documents rustic, elegant features, artistic details, and general architectural significance of each of the twenty-one missions. Searching for the roots of mission architecture, this comprehensive study starts by looking at precedents including Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Renaissance, and Native American influences. From there the book delves into how the missions influenced later American architecture, followed by specific characteristics of the style and a mission-by-mission overview. Complete with details on elevations, lighting fixtures, doorways, and more, this is an ideal book for anyone seeking architectural inspiration.
“Nothing defines California and our nation’s heritage as significantly or emotionally,” says the California Mission Foundation, “as do the twenty-one missions that were founded along the coast from San Diego to Sonoma.” Indeed, the missions collectively represent the state’s most iconic tourist destinations and are touchstones for interpreting its history. Elementary school students today still make model missions evoking the romanticized versions of the 1930s. Does it occur to them or to the tourists that the missions have a dark history? California Mission Landscapes is an unprecedented and fascinating history of California mission landscapes from colonial outposts to their reinvention as heritage sites through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Illuminating the deeply political nature of this transformation, Elizabeth Kryder-Reid argues that the designed landscapes have long recast the missions from sites of colonial oppression to aestheticized and nostalgia-drenched monasteries. She investigates how such landscapes have been appropriated in social and political power struggles, particularly in the perpetuation of social inequalities across boundaries of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and religion. California Mission Landscapes demonstrates how the gardens planted in mission courtyards over the past 150 years are not merely anachronistic but have become potent ideological spaces. The transformation of these sites of conquest into physical and metaphoric gardens has reinforced the marginalization of indigenous agency and diminished the contemporary consequences of colonialism. And yet, importantly, this book also points to the potential to create very different visitor experiences than these landscapes currently do. Despite the wealth of scholarship on California history, until now no book has explored the mission landscapes as an avenue into understanding the politics of the past, tracing the continuum between the Spanish colonial period, emerging American nationalism, and the contemporary heritage industry.
The missions and presidios of California are among the state’s oldest structures and are the most visited historical monuments. These notable buildings are an integral part of California’s history. The state’s recorded history essentially began with the Spanish missions along the ambitious chain of 21 missions on El Camino Reál (The Royal Highway) and the men who founded them. California Missions and Presidios is a gorgeous book that presents the history of these intriguing sanctuaries of peace and beauty. The eye-popping photography of Alastair Worden and Randy Leffingwell captures their unique character, while Leffingwell’s accessible text brings to life the overall history of California’s conquest by the Spanish; the construction and operation of the missions, presidios, ranchos, and adobes; and the background of the mission architecture and style. Seemingly unchanged, these missions and presidios have survived the centuries remarkably well—still welcoming visitors as a refuge of serenity and splendor while providing a glimpse into the lives of the spirited pioneers who built these structures and lived and worked there.
Accurate renderings of 21 structures: San Diego de Alcalá, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Clara de Asís, San José de Guadalupe, Santa Cruz, many more, plus realistic vignettes of mission life. Captions.
"Illustrated in color throughout, The California Missions: History, Art, and Preservation combines engaging text with historical paintings, archival photographs, and recent photography to create a vivid chronicle of these iconic institutions. The narrative recounts their founding and early history, surveys mission art and architecture, and examines their role in shaping the history and culture of California. A final chapter discusses recent advances in preserving the mission heritage for future generations. The second part of the book provides concise historical profiles for each of the twenty-one missions." --Book Jacket.
The aura and romance of Old California lives on in this treasury of inviting homes. The California House presents the magic of the "golden state," that land of infinite promise and dreams, the most tangible expression of which can be found in the homes built by early California dreamers. Here domestic visions of tranquility and repose were inventively realized—in stucco or stone, wood and wrought iron, plaster, and glass and tile. Spanish Colonial Revival–style homes with elaborate wrought-iron window grilles, romantic, shadowy interiors, and lush courtyard gardens stand beside other particularly Californian architectural wonders such as the San Francisco Victorian Painted Lady, the Monterey Colonial, Eurekan Queen Anne, and the homey California Arts & Crafts. Including houses designed by luminaries George Washington Smith, Stanford White, Greene & Greene, and Reginald Johnson, this book will fascinate both the architecture aficionado and interior design enthusiasts, as well as the everyday lover of homes. Including, but going beyond, the much-adored Spanish style (in its many manifestations) and Mission Revival, the book features as well the Victorian of San Francisco's Painted Lady and Eureka's Queen Anne, Monterey Colonial, California Arts & Crafts, French Chateau, classic Colonial farm house, and more. All new color photography of 25 houses in California ranging in style from Spanish Colonial Revival, Mission, Victorian, Queen Anne, California Arts & Crafts, Monterey, French Chateau, Colonial Farm House. The book includes little known California work by well known architect Stanford White, known primarily for his East Coast work (designer of the original Penn Station with McKim, Mead & White, and original Madison Square Garden, and many others); as well as the Magdelena Zanone House (Queen Anne late Victorian style home in Eureka, CA); the Murphy House, San Francisco (Classic French Chateau); a Gothic Victorian 1860s home in Sonoma; Casa Amesti (Monterey style home); "El Cerrito" designed by Russel Ray and Winsor Soule and built in 1913 in Santa Barbara (an amalgam of Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival); the Frothingham House designed by George Washington Smith in 1922 (Spanish Colonial Rev.); Cuartro Ventos House by Reginald Johnson, 1929 in Santa Barbara; William Edwards House by Roland E. Coate, Sr. in San Marino, 1926; Robinson House by Greene and Greene in Pasadena, 1905; Sack House in Berkeley (California Arts & Crafts) Brune-Reutlinger House in San Francisco (classic Painted Lady Victorian); a colonial mid-19th cent farm house in Sonoma; "Mariposa," classic Spanish style in Montecito; The Marston House in San Diego (Arts & Crafts/Tudoresque); Rancho Los Alamos De Santa Elena in Los Alamos (Span. Col. Rev.); Pepper Hill Farm in Balard.
The Mission Revival was pervasive in turn-of-the-century California. It offered the proper style for hotels, schools, railroad stations, and other public buildings as well as for houses. This short-lived, but important revival is thoroughly documented in this account of its buildings and architects. Attention is given to the movement's romantic literary background as exploited by promoters, its relation the Arts-and-Crafts aesthetic, and the practical implications of its use of concrete.
A series of clues in Spanish lead four real kids down California's famous Old Mission Trail in search of a solution to a mystery of history and hilarity! LOOK what's in this mystery - people, places, history, and more! Definition of missions, and their functions in the past and present Š Mission architecture and design Š Missions and the California Gold Rush Š Why missions were founded, and the hardships involved Š IndiansŠ reactions to the missions, and the effects of the missions on the Indians Š Father Junipero Serra's work with the missions and his burial Š Important facts about each mission the group visits, including information on architecture, present-day status of the mission, the bells in each mission, circumstances surrounding the missionsŠ foundings, and other distinctive trivia Š foundings, and other distinctive trivia Š Secularization Š El Camino Real Š Ojo de Dios craft Š Mission La PurŠsima Š Concepci-n, Lompoc Š Mission Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Š Mission Santa Solvang Š Mission Snaventura, San Buenaventura Š Mission San Juan Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano Š Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, San Gabriel Š Mission San Fernando Rey de Espa-a, Mission Hills Š Mission San Antonio de Padua, Jolon Š Mission Nuestra Se-ora de la Soledad, Soledad Š Mission San Francisco de As's (or Mission Dolores), San Francisco. This book was nominated for the prestigious 2004 Beatty Award! Like all of Carole Marsh Mysteries, this mystery incorporates history, geography, culture and cliffhanger chapters that will keep kids begging for more! This mystery includes SAT words, educational facts, fun and humor, built-in book club and activities. Below is the Reading Levels Guide for this book: Grade Levels: 3-6 Accelerated Reader Reading Level: 5.7 Accelerated Reader Points: 3 Accelerated Reader Quiz Number: 74565 Lexile Measure: 870 Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading Level: Q Developmental Assessment Level: 40
Studies of the Spanish conquest in the Americas traditionally have explained European-Indian encounters in terms of such factors as geography, timing, and the charisma of individual conquistadores. Yet by reconsidering this history from the perspective of gender roles and relations, we see that gender ideology was a key ingredient in the glue that held the conquest together and in turn shaped indigenous behavior toward the conquerors. This book tells the hidden story of women during the missionization of California. It shows what it was like for women to live and work on that frontierÑand how race, religion, age, and ethnicity shaped female experiences. It explores the suppression of women's experiences and cultural resistance to domination, and reveals the many codes of silence regarding the use of force at the missions, the treatment of women, indigenous ceremonies, sexuality, and dreams. Virginia Bouvier has combed a vast array of sourcesÑ including mission records, journals of explorers and missionaries, novels of chivalry, and oral historiesÑ and has discovered that female participation in the colonization of California was greater and earlier than most historians have recognized. Viewing the conquest through the prism of gender, Bouvier gives new meaning to the settling of new lands and attempts to convert indigenous peoples. By analyzing the participation of womenÑ both Hispanic and IndianÑ in the maintenance of or resistance to the mission system, Bouvier restores them to the narrative of the conquest, colonization, and evangelization of California. And by bringing these voices into the chorus of history, she creates new harmonies and dissonances that alter and enhance our understanding of both the experience and meaning of conquest.
