page_title: Santa Fe Depot (San Diego)
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Fe Depot (San Diego) / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Union Station, San Diego
context_page_description: The Santa Fe Depot in San Diego, California, is a union station built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to replace the small Victorian-style structure erected in 1887 for the California Southern Railroad Company. The Spanish Colonial Revival style station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its architecture, particularly the signature twin domes, is often echoed in the design of modern buildings in Downtown San Diego. A wing now houses the downtown branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
  The Santa Fe Depot officially opened on March 8, 1915, to accommodate visitors to the Panama-California Exposition. The depot was completed during a particularly optimistic period in the City's development, and represents the battle waged by the City of San Diego to become the West Coast terminus of the Santa Fe Railway system's transcontinental railroad, a fight that was ultimately lost to the City of Los Angeles. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  In its heyday, the facility not only handled Santa Fe traffic but also that of the San Diego and Arizona Railway and San Diego Electric Railway.
context_section_description: The magnificent complex was designed by San Francisco architects Bakewell and Brown as a "monumental reminder" of California's Spanish heritage. The Mission Revival styling reflects the colonial Spanish history of the state, and was intended to harmonize with the Spanish Colonial Revival Style buildings of the Panama-California Exposition. The size and grandeur far surpassed anything the Santa Fe had ever built in the West. The new edifice featured a covered concourse some 650-foot (200 m) long by 106-foot (32 m) wide, with a main waiting room measuring 170-foot (52 m) by 55-foot (17 m). A 27-foot (8.2 m) by 650-foot (200 m) long arcade connected the passenger terminal with the baggage and express rooms. The cost of the station was approximately $300,000. An enlarged bus depot was installed in the southeast portico in 1942.
  The massive arch of the front entrance is flanked by twin campaniles, each topped by a colorful tile-covered dome and displaying Santa Fe's blue "cross" emblem on all four sides. The structure draws much more heavily from the architecturally distinctive Spanish, Moorish, and Mexican lines exhibited by the Mission San Luís Rey de Francia (located in the town of Oceanside in north San Diego County) than it does from the nearby Mission San Diego de Alcalá, some nine miles (14 km) away. The grand interior space of the depot features natural redwood beam ceilings, highlighted by walls covered with a brightly colored ceramic tile wainscot. The glazed faience tile used in the wainscot was manufactured by the California China Products Company of nearby National City. Elaborate Hispano-Moorish designs are executed in green, yellow, blue, white, and black and the bottom and top edges are finished with a frieze of stylized ziggurats.
caption: Union Station from Broadway, San Diego, California
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