peaceful landscape come into view well outside the city limits. Here one steps at once into the softly dreamy atmosphere of an ancient and romantic past.
To some extent the spell is foreshadowed when entering the one mission building which is to be found in the very heart of the city, the Alamo. But here one’s revery has to be conducted within the sound of strident voiced motor cars and the
chattering comment of tourists in an interior which has been preserved as a sort of museum and arranged for exhibition purposes.
Hot until one draws up before the exterior of one of the outlying missions sleeping peacefully in the golden sunshine of a perfect Spring day does the feeling come home that here, all too unfamiliar to our people at large and perhaps to the members of our architectural profession, stand architectural monuments which may well be the pride of any country and the source of superb inspiration for an architectural style to a great extent indigenous and wholly appropriate to conditions of climate
and atmosphere throughout a great part of our country.
It was my privilege to be piloted over these wonderful old mission buildings by one of the leading architects of San Antonio in an afternoon set apart for the purpose and to be able to yield myself to the absorbing contemplation which his vast fund of intimate knowledge of their construction and history can induce. It was with the
profoundest gratification also that 1 learned that this enthusiastic student had in preparation a book upon these old missions to be illustrated with colored restoration drawings which would convey the fact of their ancient polychrome splendors.
For it is not generally known that these old buildings in and about San Antonio were originally a blaze of brilliant polychrome coloring from the lowermost stones in the exterior walls to the topmost pinnacles of their belfry towers. Yet such was clearly the fact beyond all reasonable dispute upon close examination of the outer wall surfaces. Constructed massively of local stone afterward
INTERIOR OF MISSION SAN JOSE DE AGUAYO
View looking through the nave toward the main portal. Tradition avers that the arched ceiling over entrance was laid upon a solid earth center extending from the floor to apex of the arch. Evidences of the use of wood still existing in the construction of the belfry towers cast doubt upon the probability of this expedient suggesting that frame centers were
probably used. The doorway at the left leads into the chapel which is still in use
To some extent the spell is foreshadowed when entering the one mission building which is to be found in the very heart of the city, the Alamo. But here one’s revery has to be conducted within the sound of strident voiced motor cars and the
chattering comment of tourists in an interior which has been preserved as a sort of museum and arranged for exhibition purposes.
Hot until one draws up before the exterior of one of the outlying missions sleeping peacefully in the golden sunshine of a perfect Spring day does the feeling come home that here, all too unfamiliar to our people at large and perhaps to the members of our architectural profession, stand architectural monuments which may well be the pride of any country and the source of superb inspiration for an architectural style to a great extent indigenous and wholly appropriate to conditions of climate
and atmosphere throughout a great part of our country.
It was my privilege to be piloted over these wonderful old mission buildings by one of the leading architects of San Antonio in an afternoon set apart for the purpose and to be able to yield myself to the absorbing contemplation which his vast fund of intimate knowledge of their construction and history can induce. It was with the
profoundest gratification also that 1 learned that this enthusiastic student had in preparation a book upon these old missions to be illustrated with colored restoration drawings which would convey the fact of their ancient polychrome splendors.
For it is not generally known that these old buildings in and about San Antonio were originally a blaze of brilliant polychrome coloring from the lowermost stones in the exterior walls to the topmost pinnacles of their belfry towers. Yet such was clearly the fact beyond all reasonable dispute upon close examination of the outer wall surfaces. Constructed massively of local stone afterward
INTERIOR OF MISSION SAN JOSE DE AGUAYO
View looking through the nave toward the main portal. Tradition avers that the arched ceiling over entrance was laid upon a solid earth center extending from the floor to apex of the arch. Evidences of the use of wood still existing in the construction of the belfry towers cast doubt upon the probability of this expedient suggesting that frame centers were
probably used. The doorway at the left leads into the chapel which is still in use