Andalusia in California: San Diego's Iberophilia in the Interwar Period

San Diego architects of the 1920’s and 1930’s appropriated Andalusian architecture to create a sense of community and cohesive design throughout the county. What now typifies the San Diego landscape—red tile roofs, white-washed stucco, glazed and brightly colored tile— actually derived from Andalusia, Spain. San Diego’s Andalusian-derived architecture has commonly been called Spanish-Colonial, or Spanish-Revival; however, these terms do not indicate how this architecture came into being. Rather, Andalusian-California is a more accurate term, one that explains its origins and demonstrates that San Diego’s public still identifies with it today, as seen in contemporary buildings throughout the county. This thesis demonstrates that Andalusian-Californian architecture--typically thought to have originated with the architecture established at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition by architect Bertram Goodhue--is actually part of a larger tradition of Iberophilia, the admiration of Spanish visual culture, in the United States. Iberophilia has occurred at specific points in American culture as a response to international events. In the case of Andalusian-Californian architecture, Iberophilia occurred between the years of World War I and World War II--a time of disillusionment with Western ideals--when San Diegan architects were seeking a cultural alternative to Greco-Roman designs. Architects Richard S. Requa and Lilian J. Rice found architectural inspiration in Andalusia, Spain’s southern region once ruled by Islamic taifas (city- state).