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Union Station in San Diego, California, much more commonly known as the Santa Fe Depot, is a train 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 massive arch of the front entrance is flanked by twin campaniles, each topped by a colourful tile-covered dome and displaying Santa Fe’s blue “cross” emblem on all four sides.
It’s quite difficult to get a good shot of the exterior of this building due to the numerous palm trees surrounding it, except from above.
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. The magnificent complex was designed by San Francisco architects Bakewell and Brown as a “monumental reminder” of California’s Spanish heritage.
The grand interior space of the depot features natural redwood beam ceilings, highlighted by walls covered with a brightly coloured ceramic tile wainscot. Not forgetting the beautifully curved windows.
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 stylised ziggurats
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 historic depot is located in Centre City (Downtown San Diego) and is still an active transportation center, providing services to Amtrak, the San Diego Coaster, the San Diego Trolley, and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System bus system.
And though the station is beautifully designed both inside and out, the warning on the door windows is somewhat frightening.
Source: Wikipedia
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