The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, California, originally constructed for the 1915

Panama–Pacific International Exposition The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely s ...

to exhibit works of art. Completely rebuilt from 1964 to 1974, it is the only structure from the exposition that survives on site. The most prominent building of the complex, a open rotunda, is enclosed by a

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

on one side and adjoins a large, curved exhibition center on the other side, separated from the lagoon by

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or cur ...

s. As of 2019, the exhibition center (one of San Francisco's largest single-story buildings) is used as a venue for events such as weddings or trade fairs. Conceived to evoke a decaying ruin of ancient Rome, the Palace of Fine Arts became one of San Francisco's most recognizable landmarks. Early 2009 marked the completion of a renovation of the lagoons and walkways and a

seismic retrofit Seismic retrofitting is the modification of existing structures to make them more resistant to seismic activity, ground motion, or soil failure due to earthquakes. With better understanding of seismic demand on structures and with our recent exp ...

History

The Palace of Fine Arts was one of ten palaces at the heart of the Panama-Pacific Exhibition. The exhibition also included the exhibit palaces of Education, Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Varied Industries, Agriculture, Food Products, Transportation, Mines, and Metallurgy, and the Palace of Machinery. The Palace of Fine Arts was designed by

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...

. He was tasked with creating a building that would serve as a quiet zone where exhibition attendees could pass through between visiting the crowded fairgrounds and viewing the paintings and sculptures displayed in the building behind the rotunda. Maybeck designed what was essentially a fictional ruin from another time. He took his inspiration from

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

and

Ancient Greek architecture Ancient Greek architecture came from the Greek-speaking people (''Hellenic'' people) whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC unti ...

(specifically Piranesi's etching of the remnants of the so-called Temple of Minerva Medica in Rome), and also from Böcklin's symbolism painting Isle of the Dead., excerpt from: While most of the exposition was demolished when the exposition ended, the Palace was so beloved that a Palace Preservation League, founded by Phoebe Apperson Hearst, was founded while the fair was still in progress. For a time the Palace housed a continuous art exhibit, and during the Great Depression, W.P.A. artists were commissioned to replace the decayed Robert Reid murals on the ceiling of the rotunda. From 1934 to 1942 the exhibition hall was home to eighteen lighted tennis courts. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, it was requisitioned by the military for the storage of trucks and jeeps. At the end of the war, when the United Nations was created in San Francisco, limousines used by the world's statesmen came from a motor pool there. From 1947 on, the hall was put to various uses: as a city Park Department warehouse; as a telephone book distribution center; as a flag and tent storage depot; and even as temporary Fire Department headquarters. While the Palace had been saved from demolition, its structure was not stable. Originally intended to only stand for the duration of the Exhibition, the colonnade and rotunda were not built of durable materials, and thus framed in wood and then covered with staff, a mixture of

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...

and

burlap Hessian (, ), burlap in the United States and Canada, or crocus in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, is a woven fabric usually made from skin of the jute plant or sisal fibres, which may be combined with other vegetable fibres to make rope, nets, ...

-type fiber. As a result of the construction and vandalism, by the 1950s the simulated ruin was a crumbling ruin. In 1964, the original Palace was completely demolished, with only the steel structure of the exhibit hall left standing. The buildings were then reconstructed until 1974 in permanent, light-weight, poured-in-place concrete, and steel I-beams were hoisted into place for the dome of the rotunda. All the decorations and sculptures were constructed anew. The only changes were the absence of the murals in the dome, two end pylons of the colonnade, and the original ornamentation of the exhibit hall. In 1969, the former Exhibit Hall became home to the Exploratorium interactive museum, and, in 1970, also became the home of the 966-seat Palace of Fine Arts Theater. In 2003, the City of San Francisco along with the Maybeck Foundation created a public-private partnership to restore the Palace and by 2010 work was done to restore and seismically retrofit the dome, rotunda, colonnades, and lagoon. Within January 2013, the Exploratorium closed in preparation for its permanent move to the Embarcadero. In 1992 and 1996, the popular U.S. game show '' Wheel of Fortune'' taped shows at the Palace for broadcast in November. In April 2020, during the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...

, plans were announced to convert the Palace of Fine Arts into a temporary shelter for 162 homeless people. The decision was reversed shortly afterward, following protests by residents of the neighboring wealthy Marina neighborhood and concerns that the lodging conditions would be inadequate. Today, Australian eucalyptus trees fringe the eastern shore of the lagoon. Many forms of wildlife have made their home there including

swans Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Someti ...

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

s (particularly migrating fowl),

geese A goose ( : geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera '' Anser'' (the grey geese and white geese) and ''Branta'' (the black geese). Some other birds, mostly related to the she ...

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked t ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...

s, and

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of ...

Design

Palace of Fine Arts - Interior rotunda dome

Built around a small artificial lagoon, the Palace of Fine Arts is composed of a wide, pergola around a central rotunda situated by the water. The lagoon was intended to echo those found in classical settings in Europe, where the expanse of water provides a mirror surface to reflect the grand buildings and an undisturbed vista to appreciate them from a distance. Ornamentation includes Bruno Zimm's three repeating panels around the entablature of the rotunda, representing “The Struggle for the Beautiful”, symbolizing Greek culture. While Ulric Ellerhusen supplied the weeping women atop the colonnade and the sculptured

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

and allegorical figures representing ''Contemplation, Wonderment'', and ''Meditation''. The underside of the Palace rotunda's dome features eight large insets, which originally contained murals by Robert Reid. Four depicted the conception and birth of Art, "its commitment to the Earth, its progress and acceptance by the human intellect," and the four "golds" of California (poppies, citrus fruits, metallic gold, and wheat). Palace of Fine Arts - Evening with reflection

Palace of Fine Arts - Evening with reflection

In popular culture

The Palace of Fine Arts has been seen in films such as ''

Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

'' (1958), '' Time After Time'' (1979), '' Bicentennial Man'' (1999), ''

The Room ''The Room'' is a 2003 American drama film written, produced, executive produced and directed by Tommy Wiseau, who stars in the film alongside Juliette Danielle and Greg Sestero. The film centers on a melodramatic love triangle between amia ...

'' (2003), and '' Twisted'' (2004). It also served as the backdrop for

set piece In film production, a set piece is a scene or sequence of scenes whose execution requires complex logistical planning and considerable expenditure of money. The term is often also used more broadly to describe a sequence in which the film-maker's ...

s in '' So I Married An Axe Murderer'' (1993) and '' The Rock'' (1996). Additionally, the Palace has appeared in the Indian films '' My Name is Khan'' (2010) and ''

Vaaranam Aayiram ''Vaaranam Aayiram'' () is a 2008 Indian Tamil-language action drama film written and directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon and produced by Venu Ravichandran of Aascar Films. The film stars Suriya in dual lead roles as father and son, with Sam ...

'' (2008). It also appears in Season 7, Episode 2 of '' Mission: Impossible'', and in Season 8, Episode 7 of Mannix. It was incorporated into the imagery of the Sept of Baelor in Season 1, Episode 9 of '' Game of Thrones''. Lucasfilm headquarters was constructed near the Palace of Fine Arts, which has been noted for its similarity to the city of Theed on

Naboo Naboo is a fictional planet in the '' Star Wars'' universe. A bountiful world with a mostly green terrain, the planet was the homeworld of two independent societies: the native Gungans, who dwelt in underwater cities, and the human Naboo, who l ...

as it appears in the film '' Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' (1999). The structure was also featured as a placeable landmark in the 2003 video game

SimCity 4 ''SimCity 4'' is a city-building simulation computer game developed by Maxis, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. It was released on January 14, 2003. It is the fourth major installment in the ''SimCity'' series. ''SimCity 4'' has a single expan ...

In the 2000s, a smaller replica of the rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts was built in

Disney's California Adventure Disney California Adventure Park, commonly referred to as California Adventure or by its acronym DCA, is a theme park located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Park ...

in Anaheim, serving as the entrance to a theater showing the film Golden Dreams about the history of California. The attraction closed on September 7, 2008, and was demolished in 2009 to make way for The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel's Undersea Adventure dark ride. The rotunda entrance remained, but it was repainted and serves as an entrance to the ride.

Gallery

Palace of Fine Arts. View of Rotunda from north-east.jpg, View of the rotunda from the northeast Palace of Fine Arts colonnade.jpg, Colonnade of the palace

References

External links