Peralta Adobe House Essay

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The San Jose community preserves a number of historic sites as a way for its citizens to engulf themselves into the history, aside from just reading a history book. San Jose has preserved a structure that is as old as the United States itself, with a rich history within its four walls and roof, lies within the downtown district of San Jose. Peralta Adobe house is the oldest building in San Jose and California as a whole, with an extensive history, focusing on the Gonzales and Peralta families that occupied the Peralta adobe house. The Gonzales family had built the Adobe house and was part of the original building that formed the first municipal government in San Jose history. The Peralta family added many changes to the house during the early …show more content…

When the adobe house was constructed, a number of the homes around it were small huts or mud brick buildings built by the Native American’s in the area. The construction of adobe buildings with the Spanish people was the starting effort of building a city, even though the adobe house was made of earth brick. This building symbolized the heart of San Jose and as a whole, greater California, as the adobe house became part of several different sovereign nations, Spain, Mexico, and lastly America. The Peralta adobe house is a mixture of Spanish colonial and Native American style construction. Spanish colonial style is a home that is “one with its environment” as said by Lisa Stacholy, of LKS Architects in Atlanta. What is meant by that is, it uses the components of the indigenous area, making the adobe house, not another building constructed by the colonial times, but a living part of San Jose. But to ensure the occupants can endure the heat, the building has thick walls as to absorb the heat during the day, and release the heat during the evening. These features of the adobe house come from its Spanish colonial side. It’s Native American (Navajo) origins takes root from the Hogan huts. Hogun huts are sacred homes that are used for Navajo ceremonies. The adobe house has a cone-shaped chimney that is a trait that comes from the Hogan huts, allowing for the entirety of the house to be warm when a fire is lit, without the risk of smoke being released inside the house. This combination of cultures and architectural features are a critical part of what makes the Peralta adobe house so unique and historically significant to San Jose’s history as it shows the cities

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