Adobes in the sun

These are the buildings that are truly one with the soil and history of California. Made of its earth and oriented to its sun, they are a testimony to the simplicity of a vanished way of life that flourished in the half-century between 1817 and 1867. The photography of noted architectural photographer Morley Baer captures the unadorned beauty of these casas. Interior and exterior photographs depict the design, architectural detail and the almost abstract play of light and shadow that characterizes all of these buildings, some the unpretentious homes of pioneer settlers, others the spacious townhouses of Colonial Monterey. The accompanying text by Monterey historian, Augusta Fink, describes how these homes, and the mud bricks which comprise them, were constructed, the everyday life of their inhabitants, and the histories of the individual buildings.