SPANISH COLONIAL REVIVAL

A WELL- CRAFTED, ENDURING STYLE: 1882– 1940.

Preservation of Franciscan mission churches in California; designers working toward a new architecture of the American West; Hollywood romanticism; a housing boom: All of these came together to create a long-lived revival of Spanish Colonial building idioms. Most popular in what had been the Spanish Colonies, the style of white stucco and red-tile roofs also showed up in national plan books, and in the suburbs of New Jersey and Illinois.

the spanish colonial revival was in full swing at the turn of the century and continued through the 1930s. This was the most widely used of the period’s so-called Mediterranean styles—and perhaps the most historical, without that pastiche of French or Italian and Renaissance elements. In the American West, these houses were designed after the ranchos and other buildings of the Colonial period. Motifs come from the rich, long history of Spanish architecture.

The first wave, however, beginning near the end of the 19th century, was based on California’s historic mission churches (1769–1823). Designers and

builders adapted recognizable bits from adobe church buildings, most notably the mission dormer or roof parapet (think of the Alamo). Baroque ornament and the mission bell tower made their appearances. Given to long arcaded halls, bigger than life, Mission Style was popular for such commercial and institutional buildings as schools, fire stations, and railway depots. A common motif is, of course, the red tile roof.

The Spanish Colonial Revival style that followed was, in certain parts of the country, both nostalgic and suited to the climate. Inexpensive stucco could be applied to concrete blocks (or even a wood frame); indoor–outdoor rooms and exterior hallways made sense. Interior courtyards figured into the new emphasis on family privacy.

The style was popular not only for one-storey bungalows (please, call them casitas!) and single-family homes, but also for housing complexes. Transplanted Midwesterners Arthur and Nina Zwebell settled in Los Angeles in 1921, where they decided to develop courtyard apartments. With no formal architectural training, they ended up setting the standard by producing such landmarks as the Andalusia (1926), a startlingly beautiful, intimate, asymmetrical complex built around a lush courtyard.

This was a vigorous and interpretive revival. Besides Mission and Pueblo, there is a Monterey style (second-floor gallery porch), and a Moorish strain. Those courtyard apartments borrowed details from the Iberian Peninsula. Many houses—and movie theaters—might be better described as Hollywood Spanish. The booming 1920s was an era of exceptional skill—in such trades as plastering, blacksmithing, masonry, cast-stone and terra-cotta moulding, and tilemaking— enhancing the creativity.

Unlike California bungalows and Cotswold cottages, the Spanish Revival style never completely went away, even after the Depression and World War II. Santa Barbara, for one, has stuck with Spanish Colonial as a guideline since the 1920s. Another revival started in the 1960s: the first Taco Bell opened in 1962.

RIGHT Red Tile Style is another name for these houses. This 1934 hacienda in San Marino, Calif., also boasts porthole windows, arches, and a colorful Hispano–Moresque tile fountain.

ABOVE Decked out in white stucco with roofs covered in red clay tiles, one-storey Spanish Colonial bungalows fill entire housing tracts in California and Arizona.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Heavy corbels support the mantelshelf in a 1934 Spanish ranch. • Decorative metalwork in a 1920s house by California architect Richard Requa. • The Malibu-tile fireplace and stenciled coffered ceiling are original in a 1926 Spanish bungalow. • Paint decoration was based on that in Spanish missions.