Part 2

Over six hundred acres are comprised in the elongated site on which the Exposition stands. Millions of people from all parts of the world have made pilgrimage to this realm of phantasy, and many thousands more are on their way, determined to bask in the radiance of Good Will toward All Mankind, which this Mecca of Peace, Enlightenment, Beauty, and Inspiration for a better and greater future gives forth. Its purposeful influence is destined to serve perpetually beneficent cause in the furtherance of unified international humanitarianism after the ephemeral vision of this Phantom Kingdom has vanished.

L. C. Mullgardt.

Illustrations and Descriptive Notes of the Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition

Panorama Exposition from Presidio Heights

From the vantage point of Presidio Heights, one may see this panorama of the Exposition and catch the symmetry of arrangement in the walls of the palaces, in the graceful lines of the towers and in the impressive contour of the domes. The effect is largely due to the ground plan, distinguished for its balance and poise, which was designed by Mr. Willis Polk and Mr. Edward Bennett.

The main palaces, eight in number, are built around three courts, producing an admirable compactness and unity. To the west of this central block of buildings, is the Palace of Fine Arts, and to the east, Machinery Hall. The Palace of Horticulture and Festival Hall are located in the great South Gardens. The Zone lies in the extreme eastern wing of the grounds, and the corresponding section to the west is devoted to the Pavilions of the Foreign Nations and of the States of the Union.

Tower of Jewels The Illumination by Night

The Tower of Jewels, designed by Carrere and Hastings of New York City, is the centralizing and dominating feature of the Exposition. In its colossal dimensions and in the imposing dignity of its position and conception, it seeks to embody, in one triumphal memorial, the importance to the entire world of the opening of the Panama Canal; while in architecture, sculpture, mural painting, decorative ornament and inscribed tablet, it celebrates, in varying form, the glory of achievement.

Classic influences inspired the great, central Roman arch, with its massive colonnades on either side and the Corinthian and Doric columns, repeated on successive tiers to the globe, upborne by four giant Atlases, which crowns the apex; but the spirit of conquest and discovery, which vitalizes the sculptured figures and mural paintings, is modern in its expression and in its historical fidelity.

The Tower takes its name from the thousands of many-colored jewels so cut, polished and suspended that they reflect the sunshine with dazzling brilliancy by day and at night, under the white radiance of the searchlights, clothe the whole structure with shimmering splendor.

Fountain of Energy A View in the South Gardens

It was a great undertaking to transform the waste acres of marsh and mudflats into a garden which would be an appropriate setting for the Exposition palaces. Its success was due to Mr. John McLaren, whose reputation as a landscape gardener had long ago been established by his work at Golden Gate Park.

Passing through the Scott Street Entrance, one sees first the South Gardens, the really spectacular feature of which is the Fountain of Energy, designed by A. Stirling Calder. Flanking this main fountain are the two smaller fountains crowned by the graceful mermaids designed by Arthur Putnam. With their lovely pools and the splendor of gushing waters, these three serve as the motif for the formal plotting of the South Gardens.

Monterey pines and cypress, with acacia and a variety of flowering shrubs, are grouped with fine effect. Balustrades, ornamented with plant-filled urns, set off the great beds in which flora from widely separated parts of the world have been used. The successive plantings of flowers keep the gardens in continuous bloom--daffodils, tulips, pansies, begonias, dahlias, each in their turn.

Festival Hall South Gardens and Mermaid Pool

At the eastern end of the South Gardens, south of the Avenue of Palms and directly opposite the Court of Flowers which breaks the facade of the main group of buildings between the Palaces of Varied Industries and of Manufactures, stands Festival Hall, designed to furnish a center for the Exposition conventions and musical festivals. From its character, the building takes not only its name, but its architectural and decorative treatment. It was designed by Robert Farquhar of Los Angeles.

The building, in its charm of line and the dignity and grace of its proportions, reflects the best mood of the French Renaissance. The great dome, with the smaller corner domes, suggests the Theatre des Beaux Arts in Paris. The graceful curve of the main portal, the Ionic columns, the decorative corridors and the fine entrances are harmoniously and effectively developed. All the sculpture, which is the work of Sherry E. Fry of Iowa, is classic in conception and happily sympathetic in its suggestion of festivity or in its lyric quality. The floral scheme, in its, lavish massing of bloom and rich color, enhances the attractiveness of the building.

Festival Hall The Terrace and Colonnade

The rounding sweep of portico and pillar reveals the architectural style of Festival Hall. In the sculpture and decorative friezes, an effect of airiness has been achieved. Through the graceful arches, formed by Ionic columns, one notes the impressive windows, showing the French influence. The cupola, topped by the slender figure of the "Torch-Bearer," gives an inviting charm to the side entrance, considered ornate but in accord with the architectural design of the Palace. The site of Festival Hall is somewhat raised and the slopes that lead down to the Avenue of Palms are in terraces of velvety lawn, broken by wide flights of steps. On either side of the main stairway are two sculptural groups, the "Flower Girl," before which, on one side, is placed an enticing "Pan" and on the other, a shy, girlish figure partially concealed in the shrubbery.

Festival Hall Mermaid Pool in the Mist

The skillful use of pools in which is secured the charming reflection of palaces and architectural structures, with the softening accompaniment of trees and shrubbery, is one of the pleasant features of the Exposition.

There is enchantment in a foggy day, for one sees as in a dream, lovely vistas of courts, glimpses through consecutive arches, and always the charm of mirroring pools and lagoons, where, should there be no wind, the reflected image makes as perfect a picture as the mist-enshrouded original.

Palace of Horticulture The Dome and East Entrance

The huge dome, constructed almost entirely of glass, upon a framework of steel, is the prominent feature of the Palace of Horticulture. It is French Renaissance, influenced by Byzantine, and its proportions (it is one hundred and fifty-two feet in diameter and one hundred and eighty-two feet high) are almost perfect. The spires and porticos, the colonnades and entrances are replete with rococo decorations. There are garlands of girls used in the friezes at the base of the minarets, caryatides repeated in the vestibules, and everywhere a wealth of ornamentation suggestive of a bountiful harvest. The brilliancy of design is heightened by the color scheme of green and ivory used upon the lattice work and travertine material. Messrs. Bakewell and Brown of San Francisco are the architects.

Palace of Horticulture Dome and Spires by Night

At night, when the powerful searchlights within the dome are played upon the translucent glass, the effect is magical, the reflections weirdly changing in color and shape. The rich details of the decorations are softened in the night light. The slender shafts of the obelisks accentuate the vast proportions of the dome. Even the rare color combinations, which add so much to the appearance of the Palace of Horticulture by day, are scarcely dimmed beneath the artificial lighting. Minarets and sculptured friezes and the floral designs so abundantly used in the decoration are seen in fairy-like grace.

Of this beautiful building Mr. Edwin Markham has written: "I looked at the dome of the Palace of Horticulture and saw strange colors at play within its dark green depths. Circles and clefts of blue and red and green shifted, faded and returned like hues within a fiery and living opal. It was the workshop of a maker of moons, who cast his globes aloft in trial flights."

Palace of Horticulture The Colonnade on the East

The caryatides, which are placed in pairs along the corridors of the Palace of Horticulture, were designed by John Bateman of New York. The balustrades, together with the ornamentations of garlands of fruits and flowers, convey the joyous note of a carnival. The ceiling of the porches is studded with domes, grilled with green latticework. From the center of these airy skylights are suspended lamps which, by night, convert the corridors into brilliantly lighted promenades.

Horticultural Gardens Floral Exhibit in the Open

The Horticultural Gardens, lying south and west of the Palace of Horticulture, are, in reality, exhibit gardens, where much of the display belonging to the Palace itself is placed. While the decorative quality is here less emphasized than the more educational and technical phases of horticulture, the gardens are at all times lovely with a luxuriance of bloom and with the effective massing of trees and shrubs.

The display covers an area of eight acres, and experienced gardeners have united to develop the flora exhibited to a high degree of perfection. The Netherlands Gardens, the Rose Garden, with its International Rose Contest, the California Garden and others have contributed a perpetual rotation of flowering plants and shrubs in great variety and with a profusion of brilliant color. In the Forestry Court adjoining, Bernard Maybeck, the architect of the Palace of Fine Arts, has built a lumbermen's lodge of massive, rough-barked, redwood logs, but of the same charm of design and harmonious beauty of proportion which characterize his greater work.

Avenue of Palms View From Administration Avenue

Looking down the Avenue of Palms from Administration Avenue, a delightful picture is presented. Double rows of palms border either side of the Avenue, with ferns, and blossoming nasturtiums and geraniums planted directly in the interstices of the roughened trunks. The walls of the palaces are embowered in eucalyptus, acacia and cypress trees. Add to this the effect of gaily decorated flagpoles, with pennants and banners afloat in the breeze, and the half-mile boulevard is exhilarating to behold.

Many of the shrubs and trees are common to all the palaces, but each building has been allotted a different collection of flowers and foliage-plants to add a distinctive color tone to the facade. When one examines the general sweep of the palace walls facing the Avenue, certain architectural units are noticed. Centering each building is a low dome of Byzantine design, with green roof and warm pink sides. On the corners smaller domes break the monotony of straight lines. The Tower of Jewels and the four Italian Towers complete the inspiring "walled-city" effect.

Palace of Education Main South Portal

The Palace of Education forms the southwest unit of the main group of buildings and fronts on the Avenue of Palms and Administration Avenue. To W. B. Faville of San Francisco was entrusted the entire exterior wall which unites in one immense rectangle the eight palaces of the main group. A plain cornice, edged with tiles, binds the upper rim throughout. With great simplicity and restraint, the wall spaces are kept bare of ornament, depending for relief on carefully spaced portals, niches and wall fountains.

The south facade of the Palace of Education is broken by three beautiful doorways, of which the central is the largest and most richly decorated. The distinctive feature of the main portal is the tympanum in relief by Gustav Gerlach of New York, which pictures the various stages of education from the mother in the home, through the adolescent period, to maturity, when the student is self-taught. Below is the book of knowledge, the curtains of darkness drawn back that the light may radiate from its open pages. Above the portal's curve is a globe, typifying the world-wide scope of the exhibit within.

Palace of Education One of the Minor Entrances

The main portal of the Palace of Education is flanked on either side by a smaller entrance partaking of the same beauty of design, along slightly simpler lines, so that, while preserving a distinct individuality, these minor entrances enhance and enrich the main doorway and the three form a unit in their decorative treatment. The style is Spanish Renaissance, inspired by ancient models, and modified by Byzantine influences. All three show the twisted Byzantine column, those of the main entrance being more ornate. The flat, sculptured panels in relief above the smaller portals, by Charles Peters and Cesare Stea, respectively, both deal with educational subjects. The classic vases on either side of the entrances add grace and dignity, while the latticed doorways, used throughout the Exposition architecture, here effectively emphasize the Moorish note. The planting of trees and shrubs is nowhere happier than about these doorways, with the rose and mauve and smoke tones of the fresh eucalyptus growth against the ivory-tinted wall and the profusion of flowers and shrubs massed below.

Court of Palms The Sunken Pool by Night

Of the five chief courts of the main architectural ensemble, the two minor courts, the Court of Palms and the Court of Flowers, while lacking the more imposing size, dignity and symbolism of the three interior courts, largely compensate by their sense of intimacy, warmth and quiet charm. With their sheltered location and sunny atmosphere, due to southern exposure, and with the enchantment of architecture, sculpture, painting, color and landscape effects with which they are richly endowed, they are not only joyous and satisfying, but restful in an unusual combination and degree. Both courts were designed by George W. Kelham of San Francisco.

The Court of Palms lies between the Palace of Education and the Palace of Liberal Arts; enclosed on the third or north side by the Court of the Four Seasons, it is open on its southern exposure to the Avenue of Palms and the Palace of Horticulture which lies directly opposite. It is a long oval in shape, its proportions well balanced, and its effect of dignity and quiet accented by the two sunken pools and the effective planting of palms from which the court takes its name.

Court of Palms Portal, Palace of Education

In architecture, the Court of Palms is Italian Renaissance. The entire length of its oval is encircled by a colonnade, pierced by three deep portals which are identical in treatment and which are especially fine examples of the Roman arch. Their dignity is enhanced by the Italian cypresses which flank them on either side. The portals open respectively into the Palace of Education on the west, the Palace of Liberal Arts on the east and the Court of the Four Seasons on the north. The colonnade is bordered by massive Ionic columns of smoked ivory, which in the entrances deepen into Sienna marble. The plain cornice which characterizes the outer walls of the exhibit palaces here takes on a richer ornamentation to conform to the ornate treatment of the Court, while it retains the parapet of red Spanish tiles above. Between the cornice and the columns is a wide and richly decorated attic or frieze where much of the detail and color which help to make the charm of the Court are massed.

Court of Palms Portal, Palace of Liberal Arts

The sympathy between architect, sculptor and colorist is nowhere shown to better advantage than in the richly decorated frieze surrounding the Court of Palms. Panels of veined marble in browns and pinks, deepening through rose tints to red, are bordered by festoons and garlands of fruit and flowers in varied shadings of blue and pink. Separating the panels are caryatides, flushed pink, with long, pointed, folded wings. They were designed by A. Stirling Calder and John Bateman, while the spandrels over the curve of the portals are the work of Albert Weinert, as are also the graceful, classic vases on either side of the entrances, the latter banded in low relief by dancing bacchanalian figures, while grinning satyr heads finish the curved handles. In the arch of the doorways, are three fine mural paintings, harmonizing in subject and coloring with the spirit of the Court--"Fruit and Flowers," by Childe Hassam, on the West, "The Pursuit of Pleasure," by Charles Holloway, on the east and "The Victorious Spirit," by Arthur F. Mathews, on the north.

Court of Palms Italian Tower from Main Portal

Terminating the colonnade at either side of the entrance to the Court from the Avenue of Palms stand the Italian Towers, distinguished by their grace of line and proportion and their skill in the use of the purest architectural forms of the Renaissance, no less than by the charming manipulation of color and ornament. By their slenderness and by simplicity of treatment they produce an effect of great height. They were inspired by the Geralda Tower of Seville. The deep-toned columns of Sienna marble used in the three Italian Portals also enrich the entrance to the towers. The prevailing pink and blue color tones which dominate the court are delightfully accentuated in the diaper pattern decorating the rectangular wall spaces of the main portion of the towers. The upper design, repeated in each of the four corners, is modeled after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. The winged figure, "The Fairy," lightly and gracefully poised upon the topmost pinnacle, is by Carl Gruppe.

Court of Palms In the Colonnade by Night

The illustration shows the colonnade which encircles the entire oval of the Court. The bordering columns are Roman Ionic in dull smoked ivory. The general wall tone is the same, with panels of soft pink between the pilasters. The vaulted ceiling is blue. The plants between the columns are acacias, clipped to ball form. The swinging lamps are from old Roman models in pink and verde green. Classic figures are modeled in low relief above the arched openings.

Looking north through the Court of the Four Seasons, with its long north colonnade, is a superb vista across the wide blue waters of the bay to the sweeping hills beyond. At the entrance to the court stands the only piece of sculpture not identified with the architectural treatment, "The End of the Trail," by James Earl Fraser, one of the strongest statues on the grounds and perhaps the most popular.

Court of Palms A Curve in the Colonnade

The careful details of the palaces and courts--the minute finishing of cornice, column, frieze and vault, the loving modeling of sculpture, the artistic planning of vistas, the inspired brushing of murals--are marvelous beyond my telling. It is an outpouring of the arts before the altar of humanity. It is a presage of what men can do when they unite in common service.

The Exposition has taken a Titan stride toward this unified action for a common purpose. The artists have bent to one perfect expression, like the strings and brasses of an orchestra. Self was submersed in a composite achievement, not obliterating individuality but leaving it latitude to harmonize with others. The result is not the stenciling of a leader's mannerisms, but a blend of diverse and varied characteristics, an interweaving of sympathies, of spontaneous and ordered impressions. Here is an object lesson in the cooperative idea that will not be lost upon the world--the idea of a transcendent result obtained by a unity of noble efforts, a result that no massing of individual attempts could have achieved.

--Edwin Markham

Palace of Liberal Arts Portal, From the South Gardens

West of the Tower of Jewels is the Palace of Liberal Arts, balancing in architectural design and embellishment the Palace of Manufactures, which lies directly east of the tower. The niches, entrances and main portals of the two build are identical. Both were designed by W. B. Faville of San Francisco.

Like all the buildings of the main group, the decorative treatment is largely massed in the great doorway, which is distinctly Renaissance in architecture, Spanish in general treatment, but Roman in the massive dignity of the square, deeply-arched portal. Its style is adapted from ancient models. The coloring within the arch and in the overlaid ornament around and above it is a warm pink, effectively combined with turquoise blue and orange. The lace fan, of Moorish workmanship, above the doors, is especially beautiful in its delicate coloring and fragile texture and in the touch of lightness that it gives. The pilasters on either side of the entrance are Corinthian. The long frieze above the doorway and the figures in the niches on either side are by Mahonri Young of Salt Lake City.

Palace of Liberal Arts The Tower of Jewels by Night

Either by day or by night, the Tower of Jewels is the dominating center of the Exposition, epitomizing not only its entire meaning and message, but summarizing in detail its architectural development. In the main it follows the Italian Renaissance, with emphasis upon the Greek and Roman elements, while in the ornament it employs many Byzantine features.

The Tower is built in seven stages, rising tier on tier, the base a magnificent Roman arch, with colonnaded courts flanking it on either side. The Corinthian columns of the colonnades are ochre and on each side of the archway, they are of Sienna marble. The sculptured figures by John Flanagan, crowning the columns above the arch, represent in four successive types the men who made Western America--the adventurer, the priest, the philosopher, the soldier. They are repeated on each face of the Tower, the "Armored Horseman" by Tonetti, on the terrace above, being repeated four times on each side. The forms used in the decorative sculpture--the eagle, the wreath, the ship's prow, the various emblems of war--all symbolize victory and achievement.

Palace of Liberal Arts Elephant Fountain Niche by Night

The ornamental fountain alcoves placed at intervals are important decorative features of the south walls. The shrubbery has been so grouped about the niches that the details of the fountains are partially screened. Upon closer investigation, one finds an elephant's head as the central object in one niche, alternating with a lion throughout the series. They set snugly against the pink panel just over the flaring basin of travertine wherein the water trickles.

At night, these niches are flecked with shadows cast by the surrounding trees. Electric lights, concealed beneath the water, shed a warm glow upon the head of the elephant in its frame of sculptured half columns. These fountain niches, designed by W. B. Faville, are in the same Spanish style of architecture which characterizes the entire south facade of the palaces.

The Tower of Jewels The Great Roman Archway

Midway on the south face of the Tower of Jewels are inserted four commemorative tablets. The inscription on the panel at the left end of the colonnade reads as follows:

1501--Rodrigo de Bastides pursuing his course beyond the West Indies discovers Panama.

The Panel at the left of the central arch reads:

1513--Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and discovers the Pacific Ocean.

At the right of the central arch the panel reads:

1904--The United States succeeding France begins operations on the Panama Canal.

The Panel at the right end of the colonnade is inscribed:

1915--The Panama Canal is opened to the commerce of the world.

The Tower of Jewels Colonnade, The Fountain of Youth