http://www.artdirect.com/sbthp/ (World Wide Web Directory, 06/1995)
"The Presidio"
Red tile roofs, expanses of white stucco, balconies and wrought iron create an ambiance of a centuries-old Mediterranean town in Santa Barbara. There is almost no evidence in the downtown area of other architectural vogues that mark time in other American cities. The story of Santa Barbara's reinvention in the twenties is part natural disaster, part politics, and part conjuring of a romanticized Spanish Colonial past. Welcome to "New Spain."
At the turn of the century Santa Barbara began to reinvent its past, a combined civic and private effort that began with the Mission Revival in the late 1890's and culminated in the mid to late twenties with the carefully planned construction of a "New Spain". Stylistically the rebuilding referred to the past of Santa Barbara, which was founded in 1782 by Franciscans and was governed by Mexico before it became a state in 1850. The new construction was necessitated by the earthquake of 1925, which cleared much of downtown for rebuilding by an idealistic core group who were nostalgic for the Spanish Colonial days. The slate was clean at the height of Spanish Colonialism and the economy was booming.
Santa Barbara was "Voltaire's garden of retreat for affluent capitalists," writes UCSB Professor of architectural studies, Dr. David Gebhard, in "The Creation of a New Spain in America." As Gebhard tells it, many of Santa Barbara's most ardent rebuilders came from the east coast and were struck by the adobes, the Mission, and other Spanish-inflected building of the 18th- and 19th-centuries. The earthquake gave them an opportunity to create a themed city that revised history, reinforcing the city's 18th-century roots. Says Gebhard, "The new Santa Barbara was to carry forth the Hispanic tradition as it might have evolved if California had remained a Spanish colony." In the rush to rebuild, Spanish Colonial proved a fast fix as it relied on simple construction methods and relatively cheap materials--hollow tile, wood-frames, chicken wire, and poured cement.
