One of the most architecturally interesting buildings on the SDSU campus is the Communication Building, which forms the southwest corner of the campus core. Originally the Music Building, it was considered a musician's dream: it contained soundproof walls, concert chambers, a record library, and private practice and listening rooms.

The older part of the building, constructed in 1942, features the traditional Mission Revival whitewashed walls and red, clay tiled roof of the earliest campus buildings and has the feel of an Andalusian church. However, it also exhibits a strong Moorish influence as illustrated by its multifoil arch opening into an entranceway decorated with yellow, blue, and red tiles and wood double doors topped by a shallow niche cut into the stucco.

In 1957, an addition was built on the east side, joining Hepner Hall. Connecting the older portion of the building to the new is a massive cut-stone arch. An outdoor stairway leads to a second floor, where columned twin windows illuminate small offices and laboratories. The addition included a new facade on the east side of the building that contains numerous Moorish motifs: several multifoil arches, a tile mosaic on the lower portion of the wall, a hanging wrought-iron light, and stellate-patterned grills on both sides of the center archway.

The addition contained various television and radio studios, control rooms, clinical rooms and classrooms, and a debate room. The closed circuit TV studio provided programming for the campus, and the campus FM radio station, KCR, broadcast from one of the addition's studios. After the completion of the new music building in the 1960s, the speech and telecommunications programs and KPBS radio and television (then KEBS) took over the building, and it was renamed the Speech and Telecommunications Building.

KPBS moved to the new Copley Telecommunications Center on Campanile Drive in 1994. In 1999, the Speech and Telecommunications Building was renamed the Communication Building. The California Reading and Literature Project, the California Faculty Association, the School of Communications, and the Production Center for Documentary and Drama are housed in this facility, as are Communications faculty offices, classrooms, and numerous labs and studios.