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The fair
It was built for the 1915 exposition and is the only structure left
The Palace of Fine Arts was one of ten palaces at the heart of the exposition, built to exhibit works of art. Most of the exposition was demolished when it ended, but the Palace survives on site.
A ruin
Bernard Maybeck designed it as a fictional ruin
Maybeck was asked to create a quiet zone between the crowded fairgrounds and the paintings and sculptures. He took inspiration from Roman and Ancient Greek architecture, including Piranesi's etching of the Temple of Minerva Medica in Rome.
Saved
A preservation league was founded while the fair was still open
Phoebe Apperson Hearst founded the Palace Preservation League while the fair was in progress. From 1934 to 1942 the exhibition hall held eighteen lighted tennis courts, and during World War II the military stored trucks and jeeps there.
Rebuilt
Built of wood and plaster, it crumbled and was rebuilt in concrete
The colonnade and rotunda were framed in wood and covered with staff, a mixture of plaster and burlap-type fiber. By the 1950s the simulated ruin was a crumbling ruin. Between 1964 and 1974 the buildings were reconstructed in poured-in-place concrete.
The lagoon
A rotunda 162 feet high stands beside a lagoon
The most prominent building is an open rotunda enclosed by a lagoon on one side. A pergola of 1,100 ft runs around it. On October 6, 1976, the Palace hosted the second presidential debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
162-foot-highopen rotunda, the most prominent building
Day 2, afternoon
It comes after Alcatraz Island. Then Crissy Field.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Palace of Fine Arts, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.