Over the years, many buildings have arisen on the City College campus to accommodate growing need. With the exception of the terribly dated Humanities Building, which mercifully is tucked into the campus where it is not so noticeable, most of the buildings pay homage to Santa Barbara's Spanish/Moorish architectural heritage.
The West Campus Classroom and Office Building(s), in contrast to nearly all earlier structures, is a clear departure from SBCC’s, and greater Santa Barbara’s, architectural tradition; it is a strident poke in the eye. It has more of a relationship to visiting cruise ships than to any architecture in the area. There is nothing about it to give the impression it is meant to fit into the context of the beautiful campus and its many “quiet” buildings. It screams for attention. The notion that good architecture does not attempt anything that it cannot do well is clearly missing here. This building looks more like what a wealthy donor would have funded, but sadly, the building is a huge waste of public money, an irresponsible exercise in architectural excess and a giant blemish on the skin of the beautiful West Campus.
The building is oversized for its purpose, and it dominates the landscape and skyline of West Campus. In the Final Mitigated Negative Declaration for the project, a neighbor’s letter regarding the size of the building is responded to, pointing out that the Garvin Theater building is 62 inches above grade, while the new building would only be 45 inches tall. It goes on to state “[It] would be compatible with the existing mass and scale of other buildings on West Campus.” This response fails to note the fact that the new building sits on higher ground and consequently completely obscures the Garvin from the West Campus entrance.