Chapter 12
But the glory of the building is in its exhibits. France poured out the treasures of the Louvre, the Luxembourg and the National Museum to adorn this pavilion. Fine as is the exhibit in the French section of the Palace of Fine Arts, the best pictures and Sculptures are shown here. In the Court of Honor stands the masterpiece of the master sculptor of modern times, "The Thinker," by Auguste Rodin. (p. 158.) In the galleries are his "John the Baptist" and other important bronzes. Vast, unique and of the greatest interest is Theodore Riviere's wonderful group in bronze representing a triumphant band of desert soldiers dragging captive the Moroccan pretender, secured in an iron cage. There, too, are splendid paintings by Monet, Meissonier, Detaille, de Neuvilie, and many other French artists approved by time. Magnificent old tapestries adorn the walls of the great hall, with modern hangings on the entrance stage. Two shrines hold relics of Lafayette and Rochambeau, sent by their descendants; and busts of Washington and Franklin stand on either side of the heroic figure of France at the entrance.
French manufacturers have sent here those commercial articles which French taste elevates almost to the standards of Art. Exquisite products of the jeweler, the perfumer, the milliner and the costumer, with fine fabrics that make France famous, are shown in the wings beside the Court of Honor. But the greater part of the French industrial exhibits are in the Exposition palaces.
Belgium also finds her place in the French pavilion, with an exhibit of great interest, including many admirable modern paintings, fine panoramas of Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges, and a collection of rare old laces that will delight the heart of every woman.
Greece.--The Greek Pavilion represents the latest addition of a foreign nation to the Exposition family. The building was begun by the Kali Syndikat, a German corporation, forced by the war to abandon its undertaking. In April, 1915, the Greek government bought the building and finished it in classic style. Its exhibits include two hundred and fifty replicas of the most famous of ancient Grecian Sculptures.
Italy.--Though other countries have built pavilions characteristic of their soil and people, or have lavished their money on splendid examples of exposition architecture, it has remained for Italy to present in a single group a summary of the best that art has produced in a national history of two thousand years. (p. 159.) The Italian Pavilion does not attempt to reproduce any one architectural masterpiece. It echoes many. Therein is the triumph of the architect. Without copying, Piacentini has suggested in this building much that is famous in the architecture of Florence, Venice, and Rome. It is itself a masterpiece.
The Italian Pavilion is an irregular group of seven structures, all connected by arcades except the last building to the east, a moving-picture hall. The main entrance is at the west, where a broad low flight of steps leads up to a plaza between two tall buildings irregularly placed. That on the right, in Fifteenth Century style, contains the offices of the Commission. The hall on the left, reminiscent of the Bargello, is devoted to a splendid collection of antique Roman, Grecian, and Italian art, shown by Signor Canessa. On either side of the entrance is a Roman "Discus Thrower" in bronze. The Bargello hall is connected by an arcade with a square Etruscan tower, which in turn is similarly joined with other buildings that close the plaza on the east. In the rectangle between the two parallel buildings on the east, is a beautiful peristyled Venetian court, adorned with bronzes and marbles copied from originals in the Museum of Naples. In the center is a reproduction in stone and bronze of the well of the Palace of Campo San Giovanni e Paolo at Venice.
Of the two parallel buildings on either side of this court, the southern one is a Florentine structure containing a single hall devoted to purely governmental exhibits. The Tribuna between the two is the sanctuary of the pavilion, containing the portraits of King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Margherita, and portraits and relics of the great of Italy, explorers from Columbus to the Duke of the Abruzzi, scientists like Galileo, Galvani, Volta and Marconi, statesmen like Mazzini, and soldiers like Garibaldi. The other principal hall contains a series of rooms representing the cities of Italy during the Renaissance. First from the east is a reproduction of the Fifteenth Century library of the sacristy of the Church of Santa Maria alle Grazie at Milan, a chamber of beautiful armoires of carved wood, with panels painted with sacred pictures in colors. Next is a Neapolitan room, filled with reproductions in bronze and silver and marble of the Pompeiian treasures of the Museums of Naples and Rome. Then comes the Florentine Room, furnished in Fifteenth Century style with carved and inlaid wood, and adorned with copies of the best bronzes and marbles of the great mediaeval city. There is also a dining room in Fourteenth Century Florentine style, and then comes, at the western end, the Royal Salon, a magnificent hall with ceilings in blue and gold, and murals by Pieretto and Bruno Ferrari.
All the art works of the mediaeval rooms are copies of originals, but in the Bargello Hall, Signor Canessa, who was J. P. Morgan's European agent, shows his collection of veritable Italian and ancient art. Here are many things familiar through books, Michelangelo's bust of the Virgin; a cabinet full of reliquaries and profane vessels in crystal, gold and enamel done by Beuvenuto Cellini; the bronze Bacchante with silver eyes which was dug up in the gardens of the Persian embassy at Stamboul, and which dates from the Third Century B. C.; the famous portrait bust in rock-crystal of an Egyptian king of the Eighteenth Dynasty; madonnas and saints by Fifteenth Century painters; a complete garden set, fountain, statues and all, from a Pompeiian villa; Greek bronze and silver vessels and statuettes; Bernini's bust of the Cardinal de Medici; Fifteenth Century tapestries, and so many other objects of mediaeval and ancient art that a special catalogue has been prepared to describe them.
Italy's modern painting and Sculpture are well represented in the Palace of Fine Arts, and her industrial and commercial exhibits are in the other palaces.
Japan.--Japan has chosen her temple and palace gardens as the types to represent her at the Exposition. (p. 169.) She dug up the Mikado's private garden at the end of the sacred Red Bridge in Nikko, trees, shrine, rocks, greensward and soil, and set it down again on the Exposition grounds. So doing, she has shown the Western world a lesson in the beauty of simplicity. The central building in this charming garden is a copy, enlarged, of the Golden Pavilion of the Roku-on-ji Temple in the city of Nara. It is of plain wood and lacquer, with interior walls and ceiling entirely covered with gold leaf. The office building joined to the temple was suggested by the shrine of the ancient castle of Fushimi. The exhibit building north of this temple houses a complete and remarkably beautiful fac-simile of the famous temple at Nikko, one of the finest in Japan. The Mikado's private collection of Japanese art, never before opened to the public, even in Japan, is placed in the Japanese section of the Fine Arts Palace. The paintings, scrolls, porcelain, satsuma ware, Sculptures and metal work shown in this very noteworthy exhibit were collected by the late Emperor Mutsuhito.
One of the tea houses is an exhibit of the Central Tea Traders' Association, the other one by the Formosan Government. The striking features of the gardens, beside the stream and the lakelet, are the dwarfed conifers, priceless trees. Two of them are the products of ten centuries of systematic pinching back. With them are three sago palms, five hundred years old. Scattered throughout the gardens are stone lanterns. Every plant, every bit of turf, every stone in the bed of the stream even, came from Nippon.
Japan is one of the largest exhibitors in the Exposition. Her displays, shown in every palace except Machinery, are an amazing demonstration of the degree to which she has entered the trade of the world.
The Netherlands.--In its domed pavilion, gay with many bannered staffs, the Netherlands has achieved one of the most striking buildings in the foreign section. (p. 157.) Its architecture is not representative of the traditional Dutch style but fulfills the modern ideas of the present-day school of builders in Holland. Most prominent is the clock tower, where a bell rings the hours.
Within, the pavilion presents Holland as one of the great colonial nations. Roughly, it has three divisions, devoted to the mother country, the Dutch East Indies, and the Dutch West Indies, in each of which industry and commerce is pictured in dioramas and exemplified by displays of products. Dutch girls in national costume serve visitors in the refreshment room.
Holland's most noteworthy exhibits are those made by the Board of Horticulture of the Netherlands in the gardens of the Palace of Horticulture, and her pictures in the Palace of Fine Arts. Holland sent to San Francisco ten carloads of rhododendrons, conifers, and bulbs. To install them she sent Mynheer Arie Van Vliet, the landscape engineer of the Peace Palace at The Hague. Her industrial exhibits are in the Exposition palaces.
New Zealand.--The New Zealand Pavilion is of mixed French and Italian styles. It was designed by Lewis P. Hobart of San Francisco, in collaboration with Commissioner Edmund Clifton. While it contains a representative display of the chief products of the youngest of the Dominions, the main exhibits are in the Palaces of Mines, Agriculture, and Food Products.
Norway.--Norway, like Sweden and Denmark, has succeeded admirably in reproducing its national spirit in its pavilion. The building is a long story-and-a-half structure, in the ancient Norse style, dominated by a beautiful tower on which is emblazoned the Norwegian coat-of-arms. The lower floor contains three large dioramas of characteristic Norwegian scenery, and an exhibit hall wherein are shown products of the industries of Norway, especially her great maritime activities. As in the case of the other two Scandinavian countries, the sons of Norway in California built the pavilion, while the Norse Government provided the exhibits.
Portugal.--A sign of the glorious past, when Henry the Navigator made his country a great sea power with colonies around the globe, appears in the knotted cable that binds Portugal's Pavilion. The fantastic architecture of this little palace is also historically significant, for it was adapted from that of the Cathedral of Jeronymos, the Convents of Thomar and Batalha, and the Tower of Belem, built in celebration of Portugal's golden age of discovery. The style is known as the Manuelino. Antonio do Couto of Lisbon was the architect, assisted by the sculptor, Mota Sobrinho. The building has a local significance in California, where thousands of Portuguese have settled. In the pavilion is a display of laces, inlaid articles and wickerwork, exhibits which are repeated in greater variety and with other products in the Exposition palaces. The walls are beautified with a series of very remarkable photographs of famous Portuguese cathedrals.
Siam.--The Siamese Pavilion is a perfect example of the architecture of the Far East. It reproduces a pavilion on the palace grounds at Bangkok. It was first built there by native workmen, taken apart in sections and shipped to San Francisco to be set up on the Exposition grounds. Teak, sandal-wood and other rare Asiatic timbers are used in its construction. Hammered metal work, carved ivory, and tapestries form its interior decorations; but, in striking contrast to its ancient art and spirit, the building is a moving-picture palace where Siam's life and industry is shown.
Sweden.--Sweden has delighted everybody with her pavilion, a building finely representative of the people who built it, and with her industrial exhibit as well. (p. 160.) The pavilion combines the best in Swedish ecclesiastical and domestic architecture, the church tower and the gabled hall near the center, dwelling-house types at the ends. It was designed by Ferdinand Boberg, a noted leader in Swedish art.
The building is almost entirely filled with exhibits of Swedish industry, a presentation as good in its way as Canada's splendid picture of her great, hardly touched resources. The Swedish steel works have sent numerous models of locomotives, steamships, and machinery, and full-sized samples of smaller products. The government has furnished models of docks and bridges, of buildings and other engineering works. The familiar Swedish matches are here in pyramids. There are rooms furnished by Swedish artisans in birch and oak, with chandeliers of hammered iron, carpets from Swedish looms, and fine ceramics from the Swedish potteries. Other exhibits are in the Exposition palaces. In art, the Swedish collection in the Palace of Fine Arts is perhaps the most distinctive display made by a foreign nation.
Sweden's part in the Exposition was made possible by the Swedish citizens of California, who gave the funds for the pavilion, while the home government provided for the installation of the exhibits.
Turkey.--The Turkish Pavilion supplies the one touch of Islam in the foreign section. The Ottoman building is a copy of the palace of Sultan Ahmed I at Stamboul, the summer home of the present Sultan. Within the pavilion is a ballroom, cafe, and lounging rooms. But the interest of the building, and of the little mosque behind it, as examples of Turkish architecture, is entirely overshadowed by the wonderful collection of rare rugs, beautiful brasses and carvings, and rich inlaid and jeweled ornaments, all part of the Sultan's treasures, and valued at $1,500,000.
XVII.
The State Buildings
A section full of historical and architectural interest--Many notable buildings simply furnish State headquarters, others contain important exhibits--California's great Mission structure--The remarkable display of her counties--New York's stately palace--Oregon's timbered Parthenon--Interesting chapters in American history told by the houses of Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey--Fine buildings of the Western States--Attractive pavilions of the Philippines and Hawaii.
The state buildings at the Exposition fall naturally into three groups: those that reproduce or suggest historical structures, those characteristic in some way of their builders, and those that express the importance of their states by dignified architecture and significant exhibits. The richer the history of the state, the more likely its building is to reflect its past. Several states which possess famous historical buildings, such as Mount Vernon or Independence Hall, have either copied them or used their motives in the Exposition structures. Twenty-seven states, the Territory of Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands, are represented by twenty-eight buildings.
The California Building, Thomas H. Burditt of San Francisco, architect, by far the largest state building ever erected at any exposition, is an exceedingly happy treatment of the Mission style. (See p. 179.) Its commanding tower is better than anything ever done by the padres in California. From its facade, Fray Junipero Serra looks out over a charming garden, which, more than anything else, invests this building with the real spirit of California. It is a reproduction, even to the fountain, the pepper trees, and the old fashioned flowers, of the private garden of the Santa Barbara Mission, a spot where no woman treads. From this garden, enclosed by walls of clipped Monterey cypress, one looks at the tower and is at once translated to Southern California.
This building covers five acres, and is worthy to be ranked with the Exposition palaces. Under the tower is a fine vaulted loge and a reception room, both opening into a splendid balconied ballroom behind, all finished in the Exposition travertine. The walls of the reception room are hung with magnificent tapestries, loaned by Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst. The west wing contains the administrative offices of the Exposition and the Woman's Board, and the directors' club rooms. The large eastern wing is entirely filled with the displays of the fifty-eight California counties. (p. 182.) These together form one of the most noteworthy exhibits in the entire Exposition. They demonstrate the fact that a multitude of other resources besides her gold entitle California to be called "the Golden State."
The Oregon Building, Foulkes and Hogue of Portland, architects, imitates, though it does not reproduce, the Parthenon of the Athenian Acropolis. (p. 191.) Doric marble is replaced by the natural columns of the great trees of Oregon, and the frieze of Phidias, by the fretwork of the bark of pine and fir. There are forty-eight of the great columns, the same number as in the outer colonnade of the Parthenon, and, coincidentally, one for each State of the Union. They were cut from among the largest of trees. The Douglas fir, next to the redwood and the sequoia the most massive of living things, furnished most of them. But the largest happen to be the two giant incense cedars, which stand on either side of the main entrance. These are eight feet and ten inches in diameter. Then there are two columns on the south side, both cut from a spruce that was four feet seven inches through at 101 feet above the ground.
In exterior proportions the building reproduces the Parthenon, but the Parthenon had a double row of columns around its porch, the Oregon temple has but a single row. In size it is considerably larger than the Partheon. The great flagpole is a single stick of Douglas fir, 251 feet long, set in a 200-ton block of concrete. The building contains an excellent exhibit of Oregon's resources.
The Washington Building, A. F. Heide of San Francisco, architect, is a striking example of the French Renaissance. (p. 191.) Unlike most of the state buildings, it is used largely for the exhibition of home products. Its motion pictures, its group of wild life, and its displays of agriculture, mining, forestry and fisheries, are all designed to advertise the remarkable scenery and resources of the Evergreen State. Washington is an important exhibitor in the Palaces of Horticulture, Agriculture, Food Products, Mines and Education.
The New York State Building is, next to that of California, the largest structure erected by any state. (p. 170.) It is in every way a dignified and noteworthy example of the best modern civic architecture. Charles B. Meyers, of New York City, was the architect. The building is finished in plastic travertine. A magnificent entrance opens upon a wide central corridor. An assembly room, intended for the use of New York organizations, and a restaurant, pierce the second story. The other rooms on the first floor are devoted to the reception and convenience of New York visitors. On the other floors are the offices and apartments of the Commission, with a special suite for the Governor of the State. New York's official exhibits are in the several exhibit palaces.
The New York City Building, Bertram G. Goodhue, of New York, architect, is the only municipal building at the Exposition. It is a simple classic structure, housing an extensive display intended to demonstrate and promote municipal efficiency. Its exhibits, maps, models, photographs and charts,--admirably illustrate all sides of city government.
The Massachusetts Building, planned by Wells and Dana, of Boston, is a fac-simile reproduction of the Bulfinch front of the Massachusetts State House on a scale of two-thirds. (p. 181.) Within, as well as without, it is of commanding interest to every American. Its rooms are furnished with veritable colonial furniture. The club room to the right of the entrance hall is done in Jacobean style, the reception room opposite shows fine copies of Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite and Adams originals, and is hung with a long series of historic portraits, lent by Massachusetts families and the State Historical Society. On the second floor is a room filled with genuine old furniture by the most famous makers, fine colonial mirrors, and a Willard clock. The Governor's suite and the Commissioners' rooms are furnished with exquisite copies of colonial models.
The Pennsylvania Building, Henry Hornbostel, of Pittsburgh, architect. This interesting structure is reminiscent of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, though it is not a reproduction of the Cradle of Liberty. (p. 181.) Its plan was dictated by the necessity of a fireproof structure in which to house the Liberty Bell at the Exposition. Consequently, it is the solidest and most enduring of the state buildings. Besides the Bell, which is placed in the loggia, its most striking feature is the two fine mural paintings under the attic, from the brush of Edward Trumbull, of Pittsburgh, one representing Penn's Treaty with the Indians, and the other Pittsburgh Industries.
The New Jersey Building, Hugh Roberts, of Jersey City, architect, like those of Pennsylvania and Virginia, tells of the days of the Revolution. It is a copy of the old Trenton barracks, erected in 1758, and used alternately by British and Colonial troops during the Revolution. Within, its simple and comfortable appointments make it one of the most popular of the state buildings. A large lounge with blazing fireplaces, and furnished in white reed, occupies the entire central section. In the east wing are the offices and rooms of the Commission. The west wing contains the lobby and a reception room in which hang two large marines painted by N. Hagerup, of San Francisco. As the building is to be President Wilson's headquarters if he comes to the Exposition, a splendid suite, corresponding with the rooms occupied by General Washington, has been furnished and reserved for him.
The Maryland Building, designed by Thomas, Parker and Rice, of Baltimore, presents a fascinating study of colonial architecture in its reproduction of "Homewood," built by Charles Carroll of Carrollton in 1802. The present aspect of "Homewood" has been imitated in appearance of age given to the brickwork and the timbering. The contents of the building are no less delightful, historically, than the structure itself. The Colonial Dames of America have enriched the walls with original portraits of colonial celebrities, old prints, original grants by the Baltimores, and many historical documents and relics. Colonial furniture adorns the rooms. Few of the state buildings will so well repay a visit.
The Virginia Building, Charles K. Bryant, of Richmond, architect, is as significant historically as any on the grounds. It is a complete reproduction of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon, down to the spinning room, the detached kitchen and the servants' quarters, and furnished in part with Washington's own furniture loaned by Miss Nannie Randolph Heth, of Virginia, the official hostess of the building. There is Washington's chair, Mrs. Washington's work box, Nellie Custis' music stand, and many other relics of the Father of his Country. The remaining furniture, also loaned by Miss Heth, consists of antique specimens brought over from England in colonial days.
The West Virginia Building, designed by H. Rus Warne, of Charleston, W. Va., while not copying any individual structure, suggests well-known colonial types. Its veranda, in particular, is like that of the home of the Lees at Arlington. The chief room is the long reception hall, where logs always burn in a huge fireplace, typifying the warmth of West Virginian hospitality.