San Francisco de Assissi Church, Ranchos de Taos

This frame shows the church front and walled forecourt, looking in through the gate. it shows the bilateral symmetry common to Spanish Colonial adobe churches, with a central entrance and a bell tower on either side. Constructed in the late 1700s of adobe bricks, covered by hand-applied earthen mud stucco.

Many of the well-known paintings and photos of this church are from the rear of the church, showing the single massive buttress to support the rear wall (and sometimes the smaller rounded buttresses supporting end walls of the transept arms).

The front of the church has two smaller buttresses, on either side of the main entrance (partially hidden here by the gate and by trees).