Take your camera, step back in time, and stroll along the idyllic setting of the Palace of Fine Arts.
After taking some time to unwind (catching up on your favorite read or with your favorite company), continue on a short walk along Marina Blvd. passing by beautiful Spanish Colonial homes all the way to Marina Green looking towards the hills of Marin County and Angel Island to delight in views of the bay, get a glimpse of the Alcatraz, and even the silhouette of our famous bridge.
By the time the sun sets, you have just spent a relaxing day exploring one of the chosen neighborhoods of the fascinating Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
Designed by Bernard Maybeck, a California Architect, this Roman and Ancient Greek-inspired structure evokes awe and grandeur as you stroll around the artificial lagoon—complete with graceful swans drifting—the magnificent rotunda, curved colonnades, and sculptures—like the statues of weeping women atop the columns symbolizing “the melancholy of life without art”.
The structure was one of ten—and the only surviving—palaces constructed for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, nicknamed, Jewel City—a 635-acre World Fair hosted by San Francisco.
National and international pavilions showcased momentous innovations and the arts of their time, and a celebration of the city’s unity and perseverance to rebuild from the ashes—nine years following the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906.
The structures on the PPIE were built with temporary materials and were left to ruins, pulled down by the end of the fair but the Palace of Fine Arts lived on—reconstructed and preserved to the awe-inspiring Beaux-Arts beauty that we now greatly admire and appreciate.
PS: Here’s a fascinating video about the grand festival: https://vimeo.com/110961704
Marina Green
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