The Santa Fe Depot

 

We believe one of the most revealing parts of a city is the story of its public transit system. In the first months of this semester, our class took field trips exploring the blue, orange, and green lines of San Diego’s trolley system. What attracted us to the Santa Fe Depot was the architectural beauty that it’s structure held.

 

Santa Fe Depot is the oldest trolley, as well as train stop in San Diego. One of the first facts that caught our attention when learning about the history of the Santa Fe Depot, was that the structure has been drastically changed three times since 1887. Running with this interest, we thoroughly researched these three architectural changes of the depot, along with what motivated those changes.

 

Using this research, we created a podcast to show how the change in architecture of the Santa Fe Depot replicates the demographic changes in San Diego, from the original Victorian design, to the Spanish design, to half of the depot being turned into a modern art museum.

 

Our project conveys the ways in which one can observe the architecture of the Santa Fe Depot to see how its surrounding community of Downtown, San Diego has changed. By looking at just one structure in an area and being able to identify the period of its design, one can see how old an area is, what its past looks likes, and even what that area’s future may look like.

 

We hope that after our audience listens to our podcast, they look further than at just the architecture of the Santa Fe Depot. We want our listeners to see the skylines that surround them, particularly the design of various building within them and think of them as history books each disclosing the way people once thought in that area.