Appendix

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Four enormous exhibit halls surrounded each of these two secondary courts. Together, the three courts and eight domed palaces formed an enclosed rectangle whose longest walls ran along an east-west axis. Adjacent to the long wall facing north ran The Esplanade, a wide avenue (the present day Marina Blvd.). Between this thoroughfare and the bay was a wide green sward called the North Gardens (today’s Marina Green). To provide a forecourt for the Court of the Universe there was a wide opening at the center of this north wall. At the entrance of this forecourt stood the Column of Progress surmounted by its bowman who appeared to have loosed an arrow into the future.

The 435 ft. tall Tower of Jewels formed the center of the south facing wall. Resembling a square tiered wedding cake, the tower was rescued from its pedestrian architecture by 102,000 novagems hung from the edge of every ledge, outcrop and detail. These “jewels”, for which the tower received its sobriquet, were faceted pieces of belgian glass in an array of gem like colors. Mirrored backings helped to reflect the sunlight by day and incandescent illumination by night. Animated by the wind the gems sent rainbowed ripples of light across the surface of the Tower creating the impression that it was swaying in the breeze. At night, the effect was that of a gigantic kaleidoscope as the light from 54 searchlights played upon the shimmering jewels. Their beams were fractured into thousands of tiny colored shards which darted in and out of the inky shadows. An archway or barrel vault more than 100 feet long ran through the base of the tower and opened onto the Court of the Universe.

The Tower of Jewels segmented the south wall into two halves and each of these was penetrated at its midpoint by a tertiary court. The Court of Palms sat west of The Tower of Jewels and the Court of Flowers to the east. The entries to these courts were framed by a set of two identical Italian Towers whose design motif was much more successful than that of the Tower of Jewels.

The South Gardens extended along the entire frontage of this wall terminating on either end in identical Mermaid fountains. Standing in the center of these gardens, was A. Sterling Calder’s striking Fountain of Energy, a symbolic evocation of the connection formed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Panama Canal.

At the western end of the South Gardens stood a magnificent confection known as the Palace of Horticulture whose green glass dome was larger than that of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. At night this dome was lighted from within by an array of searchlights setting it aglow with an emerald radiance. When submerged in fog, the glow was diffused into an eerie phosphorescence.

At the eastern end of these gardens sat the none too festive Festival Hall. The contrast between these two large domed buildings could not have been more striking, and many fair goers gravitated toward the Palace of Horticulture when seeking Festival Hall because the sumptuous rococo decoration of the former made its appearance so much more appealing.

Flanking each end of the main quadrangle were two structures completing the main complex. Arranged along the side of a lovely lagoon at the west end stood Bernard R. Maybeck’s neo-classical fantasy the Palace of Fine Arts. On the east end rose Machinery Hall, a building so immense that Lincoln Beachy, the most famous aviator of the day, was able to fly his biplane through it.

The various courtyards and connecting avenues were landscaped with thousands of trees and hundreds of thousands of plants and flowers the work of John McLaren, noted landscape artist, who was responsible for the landscape design of Golden Gate Park.

San Francisco’s native artists were joined by the most notable painters and sculptors of the nation in creating over 1,200 figurative sculptures along with 35 murals which served as decorative accents to the architecture, courtyards, fountains, and gardens. Symptomatic of the era, of some 74 architects and artists employed in these endeavors, only three were women.

The main core of eleven “palaces” were flanked by two suburbs of vastly different character. A triangular section of land which started south of the Palace of Fine Arts and ran northwest along the arch of the bay contained the pavilions of twenty-six states, two territories, and twenty-four foreign nations. Doubtless, there would have been an even greater number of foreign nations participating but for the war in Europe that had started in the fall of 1914. Ironically, the last thing Germany and England agreed on after commencement of hostilities was the cancellation of the construction of their respective pavilions for the PPIE.