+ SPANISH COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE + 

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GOAL
CLIENT
CONCEPTS
MATERIALS
VOCABULARY
HISTORY
PROGRAM
PRESENTATION
EVALUATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 


Front Elevation with Portal
Front Elevation with Portal

GOAL

Each of your students will draw a plan view and a front elevation view of a typical Spanish Colonial Casa.  They will then use these drawings to construct a cardboard model of the casa.  Have your students complete their models by furnishing the interiors with traditional pieces. 

Plan View
Plan View of a Placita

CLIENT

The Museum of the Southwest has hired your class to serve as Curator of Exhibits.  Your students' job is to design a typical Spanish Colonial Casa to house the Museum's collection of artifacts.  These artifacts include coarse, woven jergas (floor-coverings); blankets in diamond, herringbone, and diagonal patterns; bed covers embroidered in colcha stitch; a fogon  (bee-hive corner fireplace); a Santa Fe fireplace; bancos (built-in clay benches); nichos (niches); bultos (hand-carved religious figures); trasteros (cupboards); along with carved wooden tables, chairs, beds, and chests.  The Museum's Board of Directors wants to see the models for the exhibit, including artifacts.
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CONCEPTS

  • architectural style
  • building materials
  • colony/colonists

MATERIALS

  • drawing paper
  • pens, markers, crayons, colored pencils
  • scissors, glue, masking tape, rulers
  • tempera or poster paints and paint brushes
  • fabric scraps
  • gray poster board
  • X-acto knife (optional)

VOCABULARY

BANCO:

(Spanish) a bench built of adobe adjoining an exterior or interior wall; used for sitting or sleeping.

CANALE:

(Spanish) drains or troughs set in the roof to carry off excess rain water; made of flat stones, hollowed gourds, or wood.

CASA:

Spanish for house.

COLONIAL:

the period in history when the Southwest was a colony of Spain, 1598-1821.

FOGON:

(Spanish) a bell-shaped, corner fireplace built of adobe.

JERGA:

(Spanish) a coarsely woven rug.
Jerga

PLACITA:

(Spanish) an open patio or space within a house, a plan in which single, adjoining rooms enclose an open patio.

PORTAL:

(Spanish) a porch extending the length of a building or side of a placita; supported by columns with bracket capitals.

SHEPHERD'S BED:

a raised platform bed above a fireplace; used for drying or warmth.
Shepherd's Bed

ZAGUAN:

(Spanish) a gate; heavy, wooden double entry-way, often incorporating a smaller, pedestrian entrance.

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HISTORY

Spanish settlers entered the Southwest, called New Spain, in 1598 under the leadership of Don Juan de Onate.  Men, women and children came on horseback and by carretta (cottonwood wagons).  Large, close-knit families lived together helping each other and their neighbors to forge a new life in this inhospitable land.

The casa, or house, began as a single, square, flat-topped room built of adobe bricks.  Additional rooms were added in single file, enclosing an open placita, or patio. The rooms opened out onto the placita and a narrow portal, or porch, provided shade and protection from rain and snow.  The windows opened only onto the patio. The entrance to the compound was through a large wooden zaguan (gate), which was wide enough for wagons and herds of livestock to pass through and often had a smaller pedestrian entrance set within.

Santa Fe Fire Place
Santa Fe Fireplace with
Banco and Nichos
Interiors:

  • Wall colorings - ochre, buff, pink, purple, red and white. 
  • Bancos - benches adjoining the walls and built of adobe provided seating or sleeping spaces. 
  • Fogon - a bell-shaped fireplace, flanked by two low shelves set into the corner.
  • Floors were made of packed earth.
  • Trasteras - Cupboards, free standing or set into the walls, served as closets or china cabinets.

Furnishings:

  • Coarsely woven jergas covered the floors.
  • Tables, chairs and chests were hand-carved from pine.
  • Pieces of colorful colcha embroidery, along with santos and bultos (carved and painted images of the saints) were the only non-utilitarian objects in the casa.

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Roofs:

The roofs of the Pueblos were constructed with vigas (wood beams), latillas (slender saplings laid between the vigas) with canales (drains) set into the roof to carry off excess rainwater.

The people of the Southwest treasure their Spanish Colonial heritage.  Details of the centuries-old haciendas are authentically restored.  Modern reproductions of colonial furniture grace contemporary homes.  The utilitarian simplicity and handcrafted elegance of Spanish Colonial architecture silently testify to the enduring strength of these early settlers.

Adobe's Drying
Adobe's Drying
PROGRAM

Spanish Colonial settlers introduced the manufacture of sun-dried adobe bricks to the Southwest.  This new method of manufacturing the traditional adobe building material revolutionized the architecture of the region.

Students may:

  • Conduct research to discover examples of Spanish Colonial casas.
  • Execute plan and front elevation drawings of an example of the Spanish Colonial house type. (Refer to the Before you Begin Section). Choose a consistent scale to work with so that all students are working at the same scale, 1/4" = 1'0" or 1/2" = 1'0" (Optional).  Care should be taken to label all details in capital letters and to use Spanish vocabulary where known.
  • Build models of building exteriors with roofs, using either cardboard or adobe bricks.  The students may also build windows, doors, portals, and roofs (with vigas, latillas and canales).
  • Furnish the interior of their casa with traditional pieces.
  • Landscape the interior placita with trees, vegetable and herb gardens, and a well.

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PRESENTATION AND EVALUATION

Display all models and drawings at your school.  The students should present their models using the appropriate Spanish vocabulary.  Their presentations should include explanations of the materials and methods of building construction, identification of interior details, and descriptions of the furnishings including names and functions.
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Some questions:

  1. What was the Spanish Colonial contribution to the architecture of the Southwest? 
  2. Did the Spanish introduce the use of any new materials? 
  3. Did the Spanish use old building materials in a new way? 
  4. How do Spanish colonial furnishings differ from those of the Native Americans?  How do the Spanish colonial furnishings differ from those of 20th century Americans?

OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES

  • Turn the class into an adobe factory and manufacture enough miniature adobes to build your own model casa.   Roll out modeling clay to 1/2" thickness and cut into 1" x 1 1/2" bricks.  Construct the casa on a clay slab floor and leave one side open for viewing.  Use a clay and water mixture as mortar to join the adobes to the base and to each other.  Be sure to allow openings for doors and windows.  Furnish the model with appropriate textiles, furniture, built-in fireplaces, bancos, and nichos.  Have your students be as authentic as they can.
  • Have your students make a gingerbread adobe casa!  A standard gingerbread dough recipe should provide enough edible adobe for a small casa.  The students should design their own simple pattern pieces and build a practice model out of the cardboard first.  Remember, the dough swells slightly during baking.  Cement pieces together with Royal Glaze (Recipe: Gradually add 3 1/2 C sifted powdered sugar and juice of 1 lemon to 2 stiffly beaten egg whites.  One or two drops of glycerin helps in spreading.)
  • Use cinnamon sticks for vigas.  Bake red or orange hard candy at 300oF until it melts and  "glue" onto window interiors with Royal glaze. Hang red icing ristras (strings of chile peppers) beside the door.  Sprinkle powdered sugar on the roof for snow.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Bunting, Bainbridge.  Early Architecture in New Mexico.  University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque, NM, 1976.
  2. Bunting, Bainbridge.  Of Earth and Timbers Made.  University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque, NM, 1974.
  3. Nabakov, Peter.  Adobe:  Pueblo and Hispanic Folk Traditions of the Southwest.  Smithsonian Institution: Washington, DC, 1981.
  4. * Simmons, Marc.  New Mexico:  Gibbs M. Smith, Inc.: Salt Lake City, UT, 1983.
  5. * Smith, Marylou M.  Grandmother's Adobe Dollhouse.  New Mexico Magazine: Santa Fe, NM, 1984.
  6. * Weiss Harvey.  Model Buildings and How to Make Them.  Thomas Y. Crowell: New York, 1979.

*  Suitable for Children

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For additional evaluation of your students' projects, see the  EVALUATION FORM AND RATING SCALE.

display a printable page

 

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