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Building History

Architectural historian Marcus Whiffen indicated the designer of the sandstone San Juan Capistrano Mission Church to have been Isidor Aguilar of Culiacán, Mexico. According to him, the cruciform San Juan Capistrano church stretched 180 feet long, making it the longest California mission, with a nave measuring 30 feet wide and 60 feet high. A series of domes covered the nave and crossing, while groin vaults sheltered the sanctuary and transepts. (See Marcus Whiffen, American Architecture, Volume 1, 1607-1860, [Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983], p. 49.)

Building Notes

With its six domes of stone, this was the most architecturally complex of all of the Alta California Missions. Construction took nine years, and the building stood only between 1806-1812, before it was demolished in an earthquake. Walls and a dome still stand, and it is to these ruins that the swallows return each year on or about March 19th, Saint Joseph's Day in the Roman Caholic Calendar.

The San Juan Capistrano site was recorded on the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and was given the number HABS CA-331, HABS CAL, 30-SAJUC, 1-1dr/2ph/2/pq/fr.

Demolished; the mission church was destroyed in the sizable Wrightwood Earthquake of 1812, an estimated 6.9-magnitude temblor thought to have been epicentered near San Juan Capistrano at Wrightwood, CA.

PCAD id: 3352