Architects were Samuel Wood Hamill, William Templeton Johnson, Richard Requa and Louis John Gill.

The building used innovative construction techniques to guard against earthquakes, and the project was considered to be "a prototype of American civic center architecture".

[1] President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the building on July 16, 1938 before a crowd estimated as 25,000 people.

[8] The design was intended to complement structures in Balboa Park, a mix of Spanish Revival and Beaux-Arts architecture.

The structure also features the detail of Zigzag Moderne through the use of a large amount of ornamentation, "recessed windows in vertical patterns," and "smooth-surfaced columns."

Murals inside the building are by Arthur Ames and Jean Goodwin; they are painted with egg tempera, a popular water medium used in Italy in the 13th-15th centuries.