SALINAS "In the Midst of a Loneliness": The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions

FRIARY DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

Gutierrez de la Chica laid out the plan of the friary so that it had characteristics distinct from others in New Mexico at the time. The friary of San Buenaventura at Las Humanas, designed by Fray Diego de Santandér in 1659, for example, followed the "traditional" plan much more closely, as did the first friary at Abó, designed by Fray Francisco Fonte in 1622. In the traditional layout, the ambulatorio was the central pathway to the surrounding rooms. Doors of all rooms used on a daily basis by the friars opened onto the ambulatorio, and traffic flowed around the walkway.

Quarai's design was distinctive among seventeenth century missions in New Mexico. The design of the Quarai friary, for example, minimized the role of the ambulatorio as the main avenue of access to the rooms of the convento. Instead, the residential area of the Franciscans formed a separate block of rooms along a north-south hallway adjacent to the ambulatorio. [5] From this hallway, doors opened into the ambulatorio, the cells and storerooms, and the second courtyard where the more mundane activities of the convento took place.

The arrangement of doors imply that it was common for the residence area to be open to lay persons but that casual traffic was discouraged. Doors secured individual rooms to prevent random pilferage and to help keep the residences warmer in winter.

Construction of the Patio and Ambulatorio

The plan of the friary centered on the patio. In the patio, a square kiva was built about this time. Around the patio, Guitiérrez de la Chica had laid out the ambulatorio as a series of four portales, or corridors with one side open to the patio. Within the ambulatorio foundations the crew made a floor of packed sand. Each of the four corridors were 7 1/4 feet in width. The east and west corridors measured 46 1/2 feet in length, while the north and south corridors were respectively 48 1/2 and 50 feet long. The north, east, and south walls of the ambulatorio were 3 1/4 feet thick, while the west wall was only 2 1/2 feet thick. On this side it formed the east wall of a small room (room 24). At the corners of the patio, the construction crew built stone pillars averaging 3 1/2 feet square to be the main supports for the ambulatorio roof. [6]

Figure 12. Plan of the pueblo and mission of Quarai about 1640. The baptistry has been added to the west side of the portal at the front of the church, but the patio has not been altered to its more closed form. On the west side of the church, the outlines of the house blocks that formed mounds H, I, and J can be seen. These house blocks must have been built after perhaps 1630, because they line up precisely with the north and south edges of the church and convento. The Spanish structure on the east end of mound J stands just west of the baptistry. This was probably the casa real for Quarai, maintained for visitors by the Franciscans. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Construction on the ambulatorio walls halted when the crew had raised them to a height of 10 1/2 feet, the height at which the roofs of the ambulatorio and several adjacent rooms were to be built. In the ambulatorio, the crew set up the posts, bolsters and lintels of the portales between the stone pillars. Each side of the patio received four posts, two against the face of each pillar and two more equally spaced between them. The posts were about twelve inches thick and rested on a stone sill or footing about 2 1/2 feet wide that ran from pillar to pillar along the edges of the portales around the patio. The crew constructed low walls about one foot thick between the posts on the east and west sides. On the north and south sides they built similar walls, but left the space between the two middle posts open as entrances to the patio. [7]

The construction crew laid the lintels from bolster to bolster, then lifted the ceiling vigas of the ambulatorio into place. The carpenters had prepared forty-six of these, each twelve feet long and about nine inches in diameter. [8] The construction crew spaced the beams about two feet apart from center to center, with their inner ends on the surrounding walls and their outer ends resting on the lintels of the ambulatorio portal. There were no corbels under the vigas.

Some of the vigas rested on lintels reaching from the adjacent walls to the patio corner pillars. At the northwest corner, for example, the lintel ran from the sacristy wall south to the corner pillar.

Construction of the Rooms Opening onto the Ambulatorio

The ambulatorio provided the walkway between the various major divisions of the friary. Doorways opened from the ambulatorio into the residence hallway, the sacristy, the choir stairwell and an adjacent room, the portería, and the room east of the sacristy.

The main entrance into the friary was the portería, on the south side of the ambulatorio. When the construction crew began building the west, north, and east walls that made up the portería, they installed a door frame and door, already constructed by the carpenters, in the center of the north wall. Enclosing the frame, they built the masonry of the doorway with a single splay on the east side of the opening, causing the doorway to widen from five feet in the portería to six feet in the ambulatorio. This door, the largest single door in the friary, was the principal entrance, and was intended to stop all public access to the building when closed. [9]

Figure 13. The mission of Nuestra Señora de Purísima Concepción de Quarai. This plan shows the original plan of the church and main convento as completed about 1632. The patio portal is supported on masonry piers at the corners and wooden pillars between. The portería portal is the same. The baptistry has not yet been built, and the west nave window is still open. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

When the portería walls reached a height of about 10 1/2 feet, the construction crew began work on its interior. First they laid squared sandstone flags to form the floor. Along the open front, or south side, they set four posts to form a portal, with two posts against the side walls and the other two in the middle, dividing the opening into three equal sections. Then they built benches along all four sides of the room. Each bench had a stone core or base with a seat and foot rest of wood. The crew built the stone base about twenty-four inches high and about eighteen inches wide. The carpenters cut beams about twelve by eighteen inches for the footrests and seats. At the front, of the portería the bench was built against the base of the posts. These benches extended from the walls on each side to the middle posts, leaving an entranceway through the space between them. [10]

The front posts supported the lintels of the front portal on bolsters. The lintels held up the roof vigas, running north and south over the room at a height of 10 1/2 feet. The vigas supported the usual layers of latillas, matting, adobe and a plaster sealing layer.

On the west side of the ambulatorio the construction crew built a small room about 18 1/2 by eight feet. It had a small window-like opening measuring 2 1/3 feet wide by 2 3/4 feet high, facing south into the choir loft stairwell. A doorway opened east into the ambulatorio. This room had a roof 10 1/2 feet and a flagstone floor two feet above the floor level of the ambulatorio. The window-like opening had eight 2-inch beams forming its lintel and a round beam five inches in diameter making the sill. Its plan and location imply that the room was used as a storeroom for the sacristy and choir. [11]

Gutiérrez de la Chica designed the sacristy as a small chapel, 33 by 16 1/2 feet. The room had a flagstone floor, like the church, and a small altar at the north end. The roof was supported by vigas resting on corbels with a height of 13 1/2 feet to the underside of the vigas. [12] A window looking north probably opened over the altar, supplying natural light to the room. A large door opened into the east transept of the church, and a smaller door led into the ambulatorio. A doorway in the northwest corner provided access to a small room with a sand floor, probably used for storing the Host and the more valuable silver vessels and objects used in the Mass. The sacristan kept the vestments neatly stored in a large wooden closet or chest set into the east wall of the sacristy at the south corner. A similar closet in the sacristy of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, constructed near present El Paso in 1662 to 1668, had "a handsome chest of drawers of fourteen divisions, as elaborate as if it had been made in Mexico City." [13]

Construction of the Residence Hall and its Rooms

The rooms on the east side of the ambulatorio, reached by the residence hallway, had roofs about 13 1/2 feet high to the underside of the roof beams. Most of the rooms along this hallway had splayed doorways. [14]

The room on the north side of the ambulatorio, east of the sacristy, was probably the refectory. [15] The refectory had two doors, one opening into the residence hallway and one into the ambulatorio. [16] A third opening, about 20 inches wide, was used to pass prepared foods to the refectory from the kitchen on its north side. This may have been built as a window-like opening originally, and later altered to its present doorway size. A doorway from the ambulatorio into this room in addition to one from the residence hallway implies that access to it was needed by both friars and lay persons. The most likely rooms needing such access were the kitchen and the refectory. Because of its location, this room is more likely to have been the refectory. A second, smaller opening through its north wall may have been original, and would then have been the serving pass-through from the kitchen--the large room on the north. [17]

The kitchen, north of the refectory, had a doorway with a double splay. On the room side of the wall this doorway was five feet wide, (as were all the single-splay doorways), but on the outside, in the hall, it was only 3 1/2 feet wide. The storeroom on the west side of the south end of the residence hall had a single-splay doorway that was five feet wide on the interior and 4 1/2 feet wide on the hall side. The doorway of the storeroom on the east side of the far north end of the hallway had no splay; its straight sides were three feet apart. The doorway from the ambulatorio into the hall was also straight-sided and a full four feet wide. [18]

The cells and two associated rooms formed a row along the east side of the residence hallway. All the rooms measured 13 1/2 feet east to west. The southernmost cell was the largest with a total width of 24 1/2 feet including its alcove. The next cell north was 22 1/2 feet wide with its alcove, and the third cell and alcove were 19 1/2 feet wide. Each alcove was seven feet across, north to south. The doorway from each cell to its alcove was three feet wide, and had no splay.

Between the second and third cells, Gutiérrez placed a small, almost square room 13 1/2 feet wide and 14 1/2 feet long, and the short exit hall, 4 1/2 feet wide leading into the second courtyard. Although no trace of it remains, this hall must have had a door at its east end to close the friary on this side. North of the third cell was a small rectangular room, 13 1/2 feet by 8 1/2 feet. [19] The roofing for all these rooms consisted of round vigas without corbels supporting the usual latillas, matting, clay and plaster. The vigas ran east to west over the rooms, except over the short entrance hall from the second courtyard and the storeroom on the east side of the far north end of the residence hallway. Here short vigas ran north to south. [20]

Probable uses of the rooms other than the celdas can only be suggested, but are limited by their sizes. The room at the far north end of the row could hardly be used for anything other than a small storeroom, and was probably used as the despensa or pantry for the kitchen just down the hall. The room south of the short hall to the second courtyard door may have been an office space or the infirmary. The room at the far south end of the hall on the west side was larger and was probably the main oficina or storeroom.