The San Jose City Hall successfully and cohesively embodies an impressive range of messages. Depending on where a visitor stands, the building can appear imposing or welcoming, modern or natural, towering and immovable or quaint and interactive, and the whole area is a carefully constructed mesh of curves and corners. This building’s properties are as diverse as the city it serves, but they still come together as one beautiful, unified piece of architecture.  
From every angle, the bright, white walls and windows of the main building rise up from the surrounding city, but the smaller structures of the City Hall might be even more visually impressive. Among them are a dome-topped, glass, metal, and stone rotunda and a long, curved wall, which separates the rotunda and an open plaza from a cafe and small corner building. No matter where a visitor looks, they’re sure to find an interesting view.  
When a visitor enters from the corner of 4th Street and Santa Clara, an open, spacious plaza greets them. To the right, broad, shallow steps sit in front of and match the curve of a beige wall, which sweeps around the space in an incomplete ellipse with a gently sloping ramp winding upward alongside it. This wall feels like outstretched arms welcoming visitors to the City Hall. Along the street, there are several large, irregular stones of various shape, flags in a tidy row, a fountain with an almost natural appearance, and misting, metal poles sprinkled all around the stones and fountain. In the distance, the huge main building, woven from top to bottom with windows and white walls, provides a towering backdrop for this whole scene.
Firmitas, a way of describing how structurally sound a piece of architecture is, or at least appears to be, is not visually lacking in this building, and from the plaza, the visitor will find no exception. While glass peeks through the horizontal bars of the dome, those bars appear to guard and reinforce the glass, and the broad stones serve as a convincing partial base. Similarly, despite the main building’s incredible number of windows, the solid, pillar-like corners and horizontal bars across the entire building make it appear very strong. Even the wall feels like it’s protecting both the space and the dome while also acting as an illusion of a broad, solid base for the taller building.  
Utilitas, a term to describe the utility or function of a piece and how well it fulfills that purpose, is easily noticeable at this corner. The steps are a great place for visitors to sit with a minimal brise soleil of horizontal bars overhead to provide a bit of shelter from the sun. The space serves as a place that can hold any number of different events.  
These two principles are important, but most visitors likely find the elements contributing to venustas, which can be used to judge beauty and design, to be the most impressive. The rocks and fountain appear beautiful and natural and not only set the City Hall space apart from the rest of the city, but also help to mitigate the stark difference of the surrounding area, which is mostly trees and smaller, older buildings. The San Jose City Hall is gorgeous both in daylight and at night time. In the sun, the white walls and glass almost shine in the sun. The shadows on the dome in particular create a beautiful gradient along the side and interesting shadows through the glass. After dark, the large, full windows of the main building are aglow, and the vertical beams of the dome offer an even more impressive light show.  
