Texas A&M-San Antonio Campus Tour

Texas A&M University-San Antonio is one of the youngest public universities in the state, built on the city's South Side after decades of lobbying for a four-year school there. It became a standalone university in 2009, and its architects set out to echo the Spanish missions, stone ranch houses, and talavera tile of old San Antonio. This short walk visits the campus's first building, the domed academic hall that anchors the esplanade, and a mission-style home for student veterans.

Texas A&M University-San Antonio shows that a campus doesn't need a century behind it to have a story. It exists because the city's South Side spent decades lobbying for a four-year public university of its own. After it became a standalone university in 2009, its designers set out to make brand-new buildings feel rooted in San Antonio's oldest traditions: Spanish missions, stone ranch houses and talavera tile.

This short walk shows how they pulled it off. The first hall on the new campus is named for the late state senator Frank L. Madla, who pushed legislation decades earlier to bring a university to the South Side. Look for its San Saba sandstone, shady veranda and talavera-inspired fountain.

The centerpiece is the domed Central Academic Building, opened in 2014. Its dome glows after dark. Its balconies have stone-and-brick arches with vaulted clay ceilings meant to evoke adobe houses, and its hallways double as a gallery for San Antonio artists such as Joe Villarreal and Lionel and Kathy Sosa. The building's U-shaped plan frames a long esplanade with the university seal set into the ground. It gives this young school the kind of formal front lawn that older universities took generations to grow.

It's a quick, easy walk and a fresh take on San Antonio's Spanish colonial heritage.