 DESIGNED BY A TEAM OF LEADING SAN DIEGO ARCHITECTS—Samuel W. Hamill, Louis Gill, Richard Requa, and William Templeton Johnson—this WPA-funded project was civic leader George Marston’s last great effort to improve his city. On July 16, 1938, the anniversary of the Mission San Diego de Alcalá’s consecration in 1769, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the new landmark with great fanfare.
Marston was a proponent of the City Beautiful Movement, which strongly influenced the design of the Civic Center, now called the County Administration Building, and the selection of its spectacular harbor-front location. Red tile roofs, glazed inlaid tile, and arched doors and windows framed in tile reflect the Spanish Colonial Revival architecture found in Balboa Park. Added influences include historic and contemporary: classical Beaux Arts aesthetics and elements of 1930s WPA Moderne and ZigZag Moderne. Constructed of poured concrete, the exterior pays tribute to San Diego government with rich architectural detailing and symbolism. Decorative tile thought to be by Gladding, McBean from Tropico Potteries, Los Angeles, decorates the 150-foot tower that rises above the entrance, a beacon visible from land and sea.
Images on the tiled central panel above the west entrance represent San Diego’s history, beginning with the date of its discovery by Spanish explorers and working through time to a fish, probably a tuna; a naval vessel; Balboa Park's California Tower; and an airplane inlaid with the building's date of construction.
Welcoming visitors to this inspiring example of public architecture is Donal Hord's symbolic sculpture and fountain called Guardian of Water. Mosaic tile covers the fountain's base to depict clouds in the form of kneeling nude figures pouring water from jars over a dam and into a citrus orchard. Here and at his fountain at Balboa Park's House of Hospitality, Hord was prescient about our reliance on water to live, grow, and thrive in San Diego.
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