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Welcome
If you’ve ever walked around the College of San Mateo, the architecture may have struck you as modern but different.
What you may not realize is that you’re looking at one of the country’s finest surviving examples of Neo-Formalist architecture.
Designed by internationally renowned architect John Carl Warnecke and opened in 1963, the campus is a remarkable composition of buildings, arcades, courtyards, plazas, and landscape. More than sixty years later, it remains one of the most intact campuses of its era—a place where architecture, topography, and views were carefully woven together into a single design.
Yet outside of architectural circles, the campus has remained largely overlooked.
That surprised me.
As a photographer, I was initially drawn to the campus by its repeating concrete forms, long colonnades, changing light, and dramatic setting above the Bay. The more I photographed it, the more questions I had. Who designed it? Why did it look so different from other community colleges? How had it survived with so much of its original character intact?
Those questions led me into archives, planning documents, historic photographs, conversations with historians, and eventually to leading public architectural tours of the campus. Along the way I discovered a story that deserves to be much better known.
This publication is where I’ll continue sharing that story.
What You’ll Find Here
You’ll find articles exploring the campus’s architecture and history, original photography, archival discoveries, preservation efforts, and the people who shaped one of California’s overlooked modernist landmarks.
Start Here
If you’re interested in learning more, there are several places to begin:
Read the overview article, The College of San Mateo: A Bay Area Neo-Formalist Masterpiece Hiding in Plain Sight, for a concise introduction to the campus.
Order the printed book for the complete story, with more than 150 photographs, historic images, maps, and research.
San Francisco Bay Area: Contact me if you’d like to purchase directly, and I'll drive it over.
Download the free PDF book if you’d prefer to explore it digitally.
Join an architectural tour. I’ve started giving architectural tours of the campus. Subscribe here for notifications of the next one, or reach out to me and I might be able to arrange one on a date that’s convenient for you or your group.
Thank you for joining me. I hope that this newsletter helps more people discover, appreciate, and ultimately preserve one of the Bay Area’s most remarkable works of modern architecture.
Welcome.
— Josh