Architectural Narrative “Rancho Los Alamitos” by Sally Woodbridge (Original Research by Loretta Berner and Pamela Young)
Architectural Narrative “Rancho Los Alamitos” by Sally Woodbridge (Original research by Loretta Berner and Pamela Young) The legacies passed from one generation to the next are many and varied. Each reveals some aspect of human endeavor and achievement, but perhaps the most universal and enduring expressions of tastes, attitudes, and circumstances are to be found in the buildings each generation chooses to construct or modify to provide shelter and a place called “home.” Changing needs, lifestyles, and values dictate constantly changing patterns of settlement and building style and use. Multitudes of structures vanish without a trace, to be replaced by a new generation of buildings suited to contemporary taste. However, those structures that do survive for an extended period as archaeological fragments, romantic ruins, or, more rarely, as relatively intact buildings, tell us much about the people who built and used them, and occasionally, about those who preserved these tangible links to our past. On Rancho Los Alamitos mesa the buildings of the earliest inhabitants are gone. The impermanent structures erected by the Tongva, native inhabitants of Puvunga, left little trace beyond holes in the earth for lodge poles and fire pits. The Spaniards and Mexicans who followed built structures of adobe mud—only slightly more permanent than the reed and willow “wickiups” of the Tongva. However, in the case of Rancho Lo Alamitos, and at other rare sites, circumstances have intervened. The adobe walls of the Alamitos Ranch House, which date from the Spanish period, have survived because, layered over the old mud brick walls, generations of ranchers have added their own walls, successive structural modifications, and extensions.
[Show full text]