Romance of the Mission: Decorating in the Mission Style

Describes the Mission style of architecture and interior design, based on models originating in California and the Southwest, and provides information on reproductions of Mission furniture

Thank such celebrities as Barbra Streisand, who, almost single-handedly, has simultaneously popularized and increased prices for original Mission furniture. Then thank such authors as Baca, who is intent upon preserving and distinguishing between the varieties of Mission style--Prairie, Craftsman, neo-Mission, and so on--for the sheer love of its design. This homage to a linear, somewhat austere (and occasionally uncomfortable) style concentrates on western U.S. contributions: Spanish missions, Texas and California architecture, and Frank Lloyd Wright and his disciples' interior and exterior forays into Southern California. From there he explores the reproductions, so necessary for those who can't afford a Stickley or Wright original, and how to accessorize. Long on pictures, short on scintillating prose. Barbara Jacobs

Baca (Rio Grande High Style: Furniture Craftsmen, Gibbs Smith, 1995) gives an overview of the Mission Style of architecture and interior design in the United States, from its roots in Moorish Spain through the classic missions of New Mexico and California to the contemporary style of Neo-Mission. The book focuses on examples of the Mission style in residential interiors and concludes with sources for furniture, accessories, and the like. Though a more detailed explanation of the turn-of-the-century styles of Mission Revival, Peublo Revival, and the more elaborate Spanish Colonial Revival is needed to distinguish one from the other, this is a good resource for large and regional interior design collections and a colorful companion to Karen J. Weitze's California Mission Revival (Hennessey & Ingalls, 1984).
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.