ARCHITECTURE REVIEW : Missions Set Tone for Design

In more than 200 years of San Diego County architecture, two local buildings have had a greater impact than any others: the missions.

Mission San Diego de Alcala gets most of the attention. Founded in 1769 in what is now Old Town, it was moved to its present Mission Valley location in 1774. With its central location and high visibility, the mission has become a symbol of San Diego. Its image has been featured prominently in picture books and tourism brochures for years.

But what of the other local mission, known in its day as “The King of the Missions”?

Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside, built in 1798 under the local supervision of Father Antonio Peyri, was the largest of the 21 California missions in land holdings and number of residents, according to Brother Rufino, a member of the Franciscan order that operates the mission today. By 1820, it supported a population of thousands of Christianized Indians and Franciscans.

Several architectural features set San Luis Rey apart from the other missions in the California chain.

Instead of being an elongated box, like most other mission churches, this one has wings, or “transepts,” on either side of the sanctuary, used to display religious objects and art.

San Luis Rey’s church is the only mission church with an octagonal dome over the sanctuary. This sheds ethereal, natural light on the altar.

With their bold forms, the missions influenced several generations of San Diego architects.

During the 1800s, they served as the models for the large adobe houses built on the ranchos, estates developed on land granted to an assortment of California settlers as Mexico attempted to extend its control to the north.

These mansions used layouts similar to the missions: an L- or U-shaped plan, with the wings of the house surrounding a courtyard with a fountain in the center. Like the missions, many of these homes were built of adobe bricks formed from local soil, dried in the sun. Such indigenous materials naturally married the buildings to their sites.

In the 20th Century, San Diego architect Irving Gill’s stripped-down variations on the mission style marked the local beginnings of the movement known as modernism. Buildings like his Women’s Club in La Jolla and several homes use pergolas (trellis-covered outdoor walkways), arches and smooth, adobe-like stucco walls, all undoubtedly influenced by the missions.

The generation after Gill was also inspired by mission architecture, including William Templeton Johnson, whose 1929 Serra Museum in Presidio Park near Old Town looks so much like a mission that many first-time visitors to San Diego mistake it for Mission San Diego de Alcala.

Los Angeles architect Cliff May, who died earlier this year, made a career of designing modern ranch houses, several of them in San Diego. Although the materials were different, May’s debt to mission design is obvious: L- or U-shaped floor plans, with interior rooms opening onto a central courtyards, and tiles roofs above white adobelike stucco walls.

Even today, Mission San Luis Rey has a powerful effect on nearby architecture, most notably the pseudo-mission malls that line Mission Avenue for two or three miles west of the building.

San Diego architect Robert Ferris helped oversee the most recent restoration at the mission, completed two years ago.

According to a report prepared by Ferris and University of San Diego art historian Therese Whitcomb, the design of the mission can be traced to ancient architecture through Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, who administered the mission chain--including design--during the late 1700s.

The Santa Barbara mission is considered one of Lasuen’s landmark achievements, and, according to Ferris and Whitcomb, the Oceanside mission shares elements including a domed bell tower with arched openings and a rosette window, and the proportions of the front facade.

According to the historical report, Father Lasuen used the Six Books on Architecture, a classical text written in 27 BC by Vitruvius, as the basis for the missions. Among the ideas outlined in the text were the recommended proportions for such exterior elements as columns and pediments. It was believed that certain dimensions have a calming effect.

Since the 1800s, many visitors have recorded their reactions to the building. The French explorer Auguste Duhaut-Cilly made the following journal entry in June, 1827, after seeing the mission for the first time:

“We found before us, on an elevated piece of land, the superb structure of Mission San Luis Rey, the glittering whiteness of which flashed back to us by the first rays of the day. At the distance in which we were and in the still uncertain light of dawn, this edifice, very beautifully modeled and supported by its numerous pillars, had the aspect of a palace.”

Changes in the mission’s administration because of transitions in California from Spanish to Mexican to American rule made maintenance nearly non-existent. The building deteriorated.

Restorations in the 1800s and 1900s were not always faithful, Ferris and Whitcomb say. Inappropriate materials were often substituted, such as commercially produced brick in place of adobe. Plaster and concrete used to touch up the exterior covered fine classical detailing, such as sharp-edged moldings and a “string course”--a horizontal line--around the church tower.

Repairs completed about two years ago with a $50,000 state grant, received an award last April from the California Preservation Foundation. The original, simple color scheme was renewed under the guidance of Ferris and Whitcomb, and several rotting roof timbers were replaced. A system of nearly invisible screens was added to keep birds out of the belfry.

A walk through the grounds evokes a sense of awe and historical reverence. A huge pepper tree planted in the main quadrangle in 1830 is purported to be the first of the species in California.

The order imposed by the arches has a peaceful effect. Each opening frames a window or door. Bougainvillea creep up the front walls, uncluttered by gutters. During a rainstorm, water spills from clay tile scuppers positioned along the roof’s edge, watering the gardens below.