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Overview

The City of San Bernardino sought to create a corporate, big-city image for its city hall in the early 1970s, and secured the services of the Los Angeles architectural firm of Victor Gruen and Associates, well-known for its shopping centers and large-scale urban planning projects. Lead designer Cesar Pelli (b. 1926 in Argentina), would produce a sophisticated design clad in a dark, curtain-wall, that contrasted notably to previous Neo-Classical or Spanish Colonial city halls built routinely in CA.

Building Notes

The City of San Bernardino stated of its own city hall: "In 1982 the American Institute of Architects celebrated the 50^thAnniversary of the Historic American Buildings Survey under the sponsorship of the United States Conference of Mayors and the United States Department of the Interior. Selected were 30 of America's City Halls which presented civic architecture that revealed the changing architectural tastes and social orientations of America. San Bernardino City Hall was selected as a modern super high tech example of the 20^thCentury." (See City of San Bernardino, "City Halls of San Bernardino," accessed 08/02/2016.)

PCAD id: 1150