The Spanish Colonial Revival Style was a United States architectural stylistic movement that came about in the early 20th century, starting in California and Florida as a regional expression related to history, environment, and nostalgia. The Spanish Colonial Revival Style was also influenced by the opening of the Panama Canal and the overwhelming success of the novel Ramona set in Alta California. Based on the Spanish Colonial architecture from the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish Colonial Revival style updated these forms and detailing for a new century and culture.
The Panama-California Exposition of 1915 in San Diego, with lead architect Bertram Goodhue, is credited with creating national attention for the aesthetic popularity of this style.
The Spanish Colonial Revival movement enjoyed its greatest popularity between 1915 and 1931 and was most often exhibited in single-level detached houses and small commercial buildings.
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The antecedents of the Spanish Colonial Revival Style can be traced to the Mediterranean Revival architectural style. For St. Augustine, Florida, three northeastern architects, New Yorkers John Carrère and Thomas Hastings of Carrère and Hastings and Bostonian Franklin W. Smith, designed grand, elaborately detailed hotels in the Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Revival styles in the 1880s. With the advent of the Ponce de León Hotel (Carrère and Hastings, 1882), the Alcazar Hotel (Carrère and Hastings, 1887) and the Casa Monica Hotel (later Hotel Cordova) (Franklin W. Smith, 1888) thousands of winter visitors to 'the Sunshine State' began to experience the charm and romance of Spanish influenced architecture. These three hotels were influenced not only by the centuries old buildings remaining from the Spanish rule in St. Augustine but also by The Old City House, constructed in 1873 and still standing, an excellent example of early Spanish Colonial Revival architecture.
The possibilities of the Spanish Colonial Revival Style were brought to the attention of architects attending late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries international expositions. For example, California's Mission Revival style Pavilion in white stucco at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago,[1] and the Mission Inn, along with the Electric Tower of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1900[2] introduced the potential of Spanish Colonial Revival. They also integrated porticoes, pediments and colonnades influenced by Beaux Arts classicism as well.
By the early years of the 1910s, architects in Florida had began to work in a Spanish Colonial Revival style. Frederick H. Trimble’s Farmer’s Bank in Vero Beach, completed in 1914, is a fully mature early example of the style. The city of St. Cloud, Florida, espoused the style both for homes and commercial structures and has a fine collection of subtle stucco buildings reminiscent of colonial Mexico. Many of these were designed by architectural partners Ida Annah Ryan and Isabel Roberts.
The major location of design and construction in the Spanish Colonial Revival style was California, especially in the coastal cities. In 1915 the San Diego Panama-California Exposition, with architects Bertram Goodhue, Carleton Winslow Sr., and Irving Gill, popularized the style in the state and nation. After its destruction from the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake, the city adopted and mandated the style for a unified Spanish character. A major example from the rebuilding is the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. The Pasadena City Hall and Beverly Hills City Hall are other civic examples in California.
Spanish Colonial Revival architecture shares some elements with the earlier Mission Revival style derived from the architecture of the California missions, and Pueblo Revival style from the traditional Puebloan peoples in New Mexico. Both precedents were popularized in the Western United States by the Fred Harvey and his Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Depots and Hotels. The Spanish Colonial Revival style is also influenced by the American Craftsman style and Arts and Crafts Movement.
Spanish Colonial Revival architecture is characterized by a combination of detail from several eras of Spanish Baroque, Spanish Colonial, Moorish Revival and Mexican Churrigueresque architecture, the style is marked by the prodigious use of smooth plaster (stucco) wall and chimney finishes, low-pitched clay tile, shed, or flat roofs, and terracotta or cast concrete ornaments. Other characteristics typically include small porches or balconies, Roman or semi-circular arcades and fenestration, wood casement or tall, double–hung windows, canvas awnings, and decorative iron trim.
One of the most accomplished architects of the style was George Washington Smith who practiced during the 1920s in Santa Barbara, California. His own residences El Hogar (1916, a.k.a. Casa Dracaena) and Casa del Greco (1920) brought him commissions from local society in Montecito and Santa Barbara. An example landmark house he designed is the Steedman estate Casa del Herrero in Montecito, now a registered National Historic Landmark and restored historic house—landscape museum. Other examples are the Jackling House and Lobero Theatre also in California.
Also notable in California were architects John Byers, Wallace Neff, Reginald Johnson, Elmer Grey, William Johnson, Lutah Maria Riggs, and many other designers.[3] Bertram Goodhue and Carleton Winslow initiated the style as the dominant historical regional style, in Hawaiian architecture of the 1920s and in California to the present day.
In Florida notable architects include: Marion Wyeth, Robert Weed, Addison Mizner, Maurice Fatio, James Gamble Rogers II, Kiehnel and Elliott, John Elliot, Albert Pierce, Harry Griffin, and Wallace Neff.[3]
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