New Mexican Architecture in the Context of the Southwest by Mary Grizzard
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New Mexican Architecture in the Context of the Southwest by Mary Grizzard Fou r of the Southwestern states in the goods and artisans. Accordingly, the most backs"), whil e the Spani ards adopted United Stat es contain significant architec elaborate architectural sculpture was nor these techniques and also contributed the ture da tin g from the Spanish colonial mall y by professional artisans who cam e use of adobe bricks, prepared in wooden period, for they belonged to the north ern from present-day Mexico for the purpose molds. Although fired tiles for roofing fron tier of New Spain. It should not be of completing specific tasks in the nor and paving were use extensively in most surprising that churches constitute the thern provinces. In the Southwestern oth er areas settled by the Spaniards, they majority of these structures, for one is states, there was beautiful, ornate ar were never used in New Mexico. Per haps reminded of their importance by Pro chitectural sculpture, which compared the reason ma y be that the Spaniards, fessor Herb ert E. Bolton's 1917 essay' on favorably to an y in Mexico at the time. find ing a tradition of low-fired pottery the Spanish mission as a frontier institu Th e most outstanding remaining ex production among the Indians, interven tion , in which he stated that amples, all from the eighteenth century, ed to impose some Spanish pottery "whoever und ertakes to interpret the are: La Castrense Altarpiece in Santa Fe; designs, but did not impose their own forces by which Spai n entered her rule , San Xavier del Bac Church near Tucson; methods of production in order to her language, her law, and her traditions and Missions San Antonio del Valero, San manufacture highly-fired pa ntiles for over the Frontiers of her vast American Jose, and Concepcion in San Antonio. roofing. A strong regional, colonial style possessions, must give close att enti on to Th e province of New Mexico was the of architecture developed in New Mexico, the missions...". most northern of all those of ew Spain. but the sources for this local development Throughout the Spanish borderlands of It was supported by the Crown in order are also found in Mexico, as the United States, the missionaries were to convert Native Americans to Chris demonstrated by the examples of adobe, Franciscans. The only exception was in tianity, and also because the area served trabeated structures with similar plans, the Pimeria Alta of Southern Arizona, as an important defense outpost for the fenestration, decoration, and siting to be wh ich was a Jesuit mission field until the more southerly colon ial provinces of foun d to the south. Order was expelled from Spanish Sonora and Nueva Vizcaya." The first Th e basic diffe rence between Mexican America in 1767. After the Jesuit expul successful colonization of New Mexico and New Mexican churches is that the sion, southern Arizona was also entrusted began in 1598, und er the leadership of latter were generally of much simpler to the Franciscans. Chronologically, the first governor, Don Juan de Onate. construction. They were of smaller Spanish settlement was earliest in New Under his leadership, the Spaniards dimensions, lacked vaulted roofs, and Mexico, where it began in the lat e six found ed the first capital, San Gabriel, on had less ornamentation than their Mex teenth century. Then, towards the end of a site some thirty miles northwest of San ican counterparts.In New Mexico, the the seventeenth century, the first nine set ta Fe. In 1610, a year after Pedro de floors were variously of adobe bri cks, tlements in Texas were begun, and by the Peralta's arrival as the third governor, a hard-packed adobe or flagsto ne. The course of the eighteenth century, there new capital was founded in Santa Fe. 3 wall s were generally of adobe br icks or of were some thirty additional missions Missionary colonization of ew Mexico stone. Sometimes the walls were plastered within the present state. Jesuit missionary began in earnest during the early years of with white gypsum; oth er times the y acti vity in southern Arizona was under the seventeenth century, over a hundred were plastered with plain adobe; way by the earl y eighteenth century, and years earlier than elsewhere in the sometimes they were left plain. The roofs continued successfully until their expul Southwestern United States. In New Mex were flat, with adobe mud and weeds sion. Th e Franciscan chain of missions in ico as elsewhere in the Spa nish stacked on supporting vigas (roof beams). Pimeria Alta, including southern borderlands of the Unit ed Stat es, except Sometimes the vigas were squared , and Arizona, was contemporary with that of for the brief peri od of Jesuit missionary rested on corbels, or wall brackets. The California. Th e mission conquest of Alta activity in Arizona, the missionaries were interstices of the vigas were usuall y filled California, the present state, was begun Franci~ can s. Although there was a mis with latias - laid in herringbone or in 1769 by Fath er Junipero Serra and his sion supply service from Mexico City perpendicular fashion . The fenestration companions. which brought necessities to the friars was minimal in a harsh climate, and con Despite general similarities, there are every three to five years , those who staf sisted of a high, rectilinear ope ning in the some regional differences among the ex fed the isolated missions had to be very facade; one or two openings in the nave; tant architecture and art of these four self-reliant. ' Indeed, with respect to and one or two more in the transepts. a Southwestern sta tes. In all of these states, church and convento (friary) construc transverse clerestory opened just before adobe as well as stone churches were tion, there were generally only selftaught the altar to provide a flood of light on built, whil e the houses tend ed to be of friars serving as archit ects. the presbytery. In order to take best ad adobe. Th ere are more extant missions, Due to the strong presence of existing vantage of the clerestory illumination, ruined as well as restored, in New Mexico building traditions among the native New Mexican churches were often built than in any other state. The predominant pueblo populations, Spanish construction with the apse to the west or to the building material the re was adobe, and combined wit h existing methods. north." In the seventeenth and eighteenth the interior and exterior decoration of the Naturally, readily available materials centuries, both simple rectangular as well churches tended to be modest. In view of were those used in pre-Hispanic as well as cruciform plans wer e built." the simplicity of the church decorations, as in Hispanic construc tion. Indians had Accompanying the mission church was it is paradoxical that New Mexico also used sto ne in construc tion where it was the conven to or friary, built as a series of had the strongest local industry of paint available; where it was not , walls were small rooms sur rounding an inn er patio. ing and sculpture, whil e the oth er areas built of adobe. Indians had used puddled Although the convento was usuall y on the relied much more heav ily on imported adobe or hand-fashioned bricks ("turtle- south side (the wa rmest) it was sometimes January - Febru ary 1986 /21 built on the north side, as at Acoma, or The park visitor may trace the found a Fray Jose de Arrangui, assigned as guar the east side, as at Isleta. Often there tions of Suarez' huge church, the largest dian of the mission, built the 1706 church were two stories, a second patio, and cor in the seventeenth century north of the some five feet above the filled-in ground rals attached. In mission settlements present Mexican border. Although there level of the much larger Suarez church, throughout the Spanish borderlands of were no transepts, it was cruciform in and gave the structure a new orientation, the United States , the mission was more plan, with two sacristies flanking the with the facade facing the west. IS The than a convento. There were also various polygonal apse. The floors were adobe cruciform plan of this last church with workshops, storerooms, and sometimes brick, but washed wit h a white gypsum shallow transepts and polygonal apse, as quarters for a few soldiers. These various plaster. Along the exterior of the 133-foot well as the plan of the accompan ying rooms were built around a square or rec nave walls were a series of rectangular convento, can be readily appreciated by tangular plaza. Dominating the complex wall buttresses. The buttresses served to visiting the ruins. Th e nave was 76 feet in importance as well as in architectural strengthen the walls, already up to ten long, and the adobe brick walls between interest, was the church. It is to the ex feet thick , and rising to approximately 45 5.5 and 7.5 feet thick. A 1776 visitor to amination of a representative example of feet. An extensive convento with an open , the church describes two bell towers ew Mexican Spanish colonial churches interior courtyard was added after the flanking the door to make a narthex, and that we now turn. church was completed. According to a an exterior balcony which was entered Perhaps the most impressive mission 1664 document, there was even an organ from a window in the choir loft. The flat ruin in New Mexico is the towering, early within the church.'? Th e sight of the roof was sustained within by squared eighteenth-century adobe church of white church, crowned with a pine timbers resting at the ends on carved Nuestra Senora de los Angeles at Pecos.