The Evening News. November 17, 1916

40. Early California Architecture

An American architect has said that the only original American contribution to architecture is the Californian bungalow. Otherwise the United States has evolved nothing from it peculiar needs, taste or climate. Most costly dwelling in America are reproductions of French chateaux, English castles or Roman palaces, all of which express the spirit of the warring era that produced them. When a man's house was his fort they were appropriate, but they are absurd in 1916. Americans who cannot afford costly foreign palaces, for the most part, live in patchwork of European, Roman and Greek taste. The California bungalow is the product of this climate and of the needs of today.

The only new building material that has come out of the United States was produced by the Pueblo Indians of Arizona. At first the Indians lived in wikiups made of boughs and straw. These were sanitary, easily renewed, and as Californian residences in the summer were very desirable. Often there were fifteen hundred wikiups in one rancheria (Indian Village). San Jose was founded near four or five of such rancherias. They centered about the Gish Road.

When the Indians developed taste for permanence they created the adobe brick made of thick mud. These bricks were four by twelve by sixteen inches. They retained heat in winter and kept out the cold in summer. When the Spaniards came they appropriated the Indians' idea. For thick walls of their dwellings they used these sun dried bricks made of clay with which cut straw was mixed, but the walls were never left rough. They were plastered inside and out with mortar made of mud. Later they were finished with a lime wash, either cream, yellow or pink.

At first the buildings of the Spaniards were thatched with straw and reeds. Tules especially were used, but fire made straw roofs unsafe. So the Spaniards introduced for their roof a reproduction of the tiles so much in vogue in Europe. All Californian houses whether simple or elaborate were built of adobe.

The mission churches began as simply as the Indian wikiups. First the cross was planted. A booth of branches was build over the cross. Bells summoning souls to Jesus swung from the limbs of the trees. Both the ground and the booth were consecrated. With them the booth gave way to the church, which was often ten or fifteen years in building.

The padres designed the churches, and the patient, plodding Indians did the work. The missions were all built in a similar way around a quadrangle. Heavy, hewn beams and strips of leather were used in construction. This interior quadrangle was for the purpose of insuring protection in the event of an attack from without. The mission walls were solidly constructed, and in spite of earthquakes some have stood for more than a century.

Each year Californian architecture is becoming more popular. Not only does one see beautiful public buildings, private residences and, in this state, but in both town and country in the East one finds excellent examples of buildings recalling the history of California.

Transcribed by Kitty LaFavor, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2008