Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Headquarters

A 20th century Modernist icon, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Headquarters Building is a large, multi-story office complex constructed in the late 1950s. The exterior contains a glass tile mosaic mural, “Water City,” that was created in 1959 by the internationally renowned artist, Wayne Thiebaud, to symbolize Sacramento’s location between two rivers. SMUD is a publicly-owned power company that serves the City of Sacramento and adjacent regions. The Headquarters building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, and a major renovation was completed in 2019. Thiebaud’s original mosaic mural was preserved during the renovation, and today it is considered priceless.

Designed in the International Style by the architects Albert M. Dreyfuss and Leonard D. Blackford, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Headquarters Building was completed in the late 1950s. The Modernist project received national and international attention through publications such as The New York Times. In particular, the headquarters was commended for incorporating advanced design technology, including solar orientation and an active sun shading system. The building was surrounded by a park-like setting at the time of the its construction, with landscape design provided by Ralph Jones and Scott Beamer.

The architects, Dreyfuss and Blackford, commissioned the artist Wayne Thiebaud to create a mural that would wrap around three sides of the building on the ground level. In response, Thiebaud created “Water City,” an abstract glass tile mosaic that evoked Sacramento’s location between two important rivers, the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River, merging at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. When the SMUD Headquarters building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, the Nomination Form noted that the mural suggested “buildings aligned along a waterway, and the motion and reflectivity of moving water.”

Thiebaud described this project as “an early history of the development of Sacramento.” Although Thiebaud later became best known as a Realist painter who created art for the California State Fair, he experimented with Abstract Expressionism early in his career. The glass tesserae (tiles) for this project were manufactured in the waterfront city of Venice, Italy, where there is a long tradition of glassmaking. Italian artisans created the brightly colored tiles that Thiebaud selected in shades of orange, red, blue, and white. Following the installation of the mosaic mural in 1959, an LED lighting system was used to illuminate the glass.

Sixty years after the SMUD Headquarters building was completed, the original architectural firm of Dreyfuss and Blackford was rehired to renovate the historic headquarters. This included the conservation of Thiebaud’s "Water City" mural, which was restored as part of the $83 million renovation. The mural was the first and only abstract tile mosaic that Thiebaud ever designed, and although he was a relatively unknown artist in 1959 when the project was commissioned, his mural has since become priceless. The SMUD Headquarters building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, and it is widely recognized as a 20th-century Modernist icon in Sacramento.

"2022 Governor's Historic Preservation Awards: SMUD Headquarters Building Rehabilitation", California Parks Dept.. Accessed September 15th, 2023. https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1054/files/2022-SMUD-Headquarters-Bldg-Rehabilitation.pdf.

"California SP SMUD Headquarters Building", National Archives. January 4th, 2020. Accessed September 15th, 2023. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123860668.

Dreuding, Meghan. "A Rare Tile Mural by Artist Wayne Thiebaud Gets Conserved", Saving Places. September 1st, 2020. Accessed September 15th, 2023. https://savingplaces.org/stories/a-rare-tile-mural-by-artist-wayne-thiebaud-gets-conserved.

"Sacramento Municipal Utility District Headquarters", Docomomo US. Accessed September 15th, 2023. https://www.docomomo-us.org/register/sacramento-municipal-utility-district-headquarters.