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Mission Concepcion Like You've Never Seen It

Office of Historic Preservation
Mission Concepcion--how it'll look Friday night

There are huge events all weekend at the Missions honoring their World Heritage Designation. Here's one that will change dramatically the way you see Mission Concepcion. Shannon Miller Directs the city’s Office of Historic Preservation. 

"We are actually going to be restoring, figuratively, the frescoes that would have been on the original façade of the Mission.”

The frescoes she’s talking about were repetitive geometric designs that originally painted brightly those current-day earth-toned Missions.

"They were quite colorful. There were reds, and kind of bright grays" she said. "Churches were an important expression, and people put a lot of love into making them a symbol of their faith.”

It's important to note that while they’re not restoring them with paint, they are, in a manner of speaking, “painting” Mission Concepcion. Just not with paint, and not permanently.

"It’ll be through video projection. We’re working with Freeman Lighting, who is actually going to be doing the magic.”

And that multi-projector magic happens Friday evening October 16th at Mission Concepcion. There are quite a number of activities associated with the event, called Restored By Light.

“It’s from 6-9pm. There’s be tours of the Mission by the National Park Service. And then the San Antonio River Authority will have children activities, and also tours down to the Mission Portal.”

Then when it’s good and dark you’ll see Mission Concepcion as it was a couple of hundred years ago.

“We are estimating it’ll be approximately 8pm" she said. "The event is supposed to last until 9pm. 8:28  We’ll let people enjoy it as long as we can.”

It’s a free event—all but what you can buy at the food trucks that’ll be there.

For more on Restored By Light, go here

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii