Roofing in Paraguay

Paraguay is a landlocked country of subtropical plains, hot and humid in summer. Its best-documented roofing history is that of the Jesuit missions among the Guaraní, which turned from straw to locally made clay tile and left the great ruined churches of Trinidad and Jesús.

Climate and hazards

• Heat and humidity, with heavy summer rain.
• Storms and occasional tornadoes, which UNESCO identifies as the main weathering threat to the mission ruins.
• Low seismicity: a 2012 review of Latin American building codes excluded Paraguay as a low-seismicity country.

Roofing history

Guaraní. The Guaraní lived in small forest communities; groups of 2,000 to 3,000 people gathered around the missions, whose first buildings were roofed with straw.

Jesuit missions. Jesuits reached the Guayrá region in 1588 and founded missions from 1609. Archaeological and documentary research on the mission tile workshops, summarised by María Victoria Roca in 2016, shows a shift from straw to tile: historians date the era of churches and Indigenous houses with tile roofs to about 1641 to 1695, tile was adopted partly to protect against fire after raids by slavers from São Paulo, and from 1714 instructions called for remaining straw roofs to be replaced. Between 1722 and 1726 it became the rule that each mission should have its own tile workshop. Clay was trampled by oxen, moulded, dried and fired in kilns holding about 4,000 tiles each. Tiles from San Ignacio Miní, just across the Paraná River in Argentina, measure about 46 to 55 cm (18 to 22 in) long.

Indigenous housing at the missions was built as long arcaded blocks, each about 60 m (200 ft) square, on streets 16 to 18 m (52 to 59 ft) wide. The mission of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná was founded in the early 18th century, and its stone church, built around 1745, had a dome; it is one of the largest of the mission churches. The church of Jesús de Tavarangue, planned at about 70 by 24 m (230 by 79 ft) with Mudéjar trefoil arches, was still unfinished when the Jesuits were expelled in 1768.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Teja (clay tile) roofs on long houses with deep galleries, the type established in the missions.
• Straw thatch on rural houses.

Notable roofs

• Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue (UNESCO 1993). The churches survive as ruins; restoration at Trinidad has continued since 1980.

Local roofing terms

• Teja: clay tile.
• Tejería: tile works.