Examiner Building

Julia Morgan (and J. Martyn Haenke and W. J. Dodd)
1913-15

Thanks to Christopher T. White for making some corrections to the information formerly on this site.
The Examiner Building (housing the newspaper of the same name) was Morgan's first important project for William Randolph Hearst. The Mission-style building occupies an entire city block. Originally the first floor arcades were open. (See Boutelle 175 for a black and white photo of an early view or this site for a 1939 photograph.) However, during World War II they were enclosed for security during blackouts.
The Mission style borrowed from a broad vocabulary of Moorish, Spanish, and Renaissance details. Here obvious Mission-style features include: the white adobe-like walls, the frontal shaped parapet with coping, the red rounded clay roof tiles, the wide arches (originally squat to support thick adobe walls), and the wrought-iron balconies.

The domed square bell-tower with arched opening for bells occurs in a number of missions in California. The star-shaped window occurs in the Mission of San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel.

The tile-covered shed roof is a common Mission-style feature (the projection protected adobe walls from the elements). However, the elegant top-story loggia seems more Italianate.
The central dome and lantern
The side from the back and a corner dome The colorful corner domes allude to the Mission-style as well. Decoration in California missions borrowed from indiginous Indian traditions.

Work Cited: Boutelle, Sara Holmes. Julia Morgan Architect. Revised and updated edition. New York: Abbeville Press, 1995.

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