San Francisco: The Romantic Palace of Fine Arts
Exquisite Graeco-Roman ruins reflect on a lagoon in the heart of San Francisco. They were created in 1915 for the Panama Pacific Exposition.
San Francisco is well-known for its breathtaking images of the Golden Gate Bridge taken from those very steep streets. It is also the most appreciated town in the world.
The romantic “Palace of the Arts”, in fact Roman ruins with an exceptional Greek decoration in the style of Piranesi, is set in an idyllic park and is another San Fransisco landmark. The hexagonal rotunda with sculptural frieze and allegoric figures of Contemplation, Wonderment and Meditation was created in 1915 by Bernard Maybeck (a Berkeley architect) on the occasion of the Panama Pacific Exposition. The beautiful rotunda then housed masterworks of the Impressionists. You can enjoy walking through the peristyle made of thirty Corinthian colums. The unexpected bending weeping female figures, framing the top of the colonnade, were supposed to water plants that were never installed. The abundant decoration of bacchantes, palmettes and tripods is finely chiselled. The rotunda can be compared to the water tower of the “Peyrou Gardens” in Montpellier (France). It also recalls the “Heliocaminus” at the Villa Hadriana in Tivoli (Italy). The colonnade or maritime theater (the architecture here reflects on a lagoon) has similitude with “The House of the Citharist”, a painting discovered in Pompei in 1859. Certain monuments were built in the same spirit like the Longchamp Palace in Marseilles (see my article: “Marseilles: Longchamp Palace to the Glory of Water”) and the “Gloriette” in the park of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.
In the 1950s the structure and building had been very much deteriorated. The whole Palace of Fine Arts was rebuilt from 1964 to 1967 by Hans Gerson who duplicated Maybeck’s drawings. Walter Johnson “the patron who rebuilt the Palace of Fine Arts” contributed 4.5 million dollars. The northern and southern colonnades were restaured in the 1970s. The place was often used as backdrops for films, namely “The Rock” (1996) by Michael Bay starring Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris.
“The Palace of Fine Arts is so sublime, so majestic, and the product of such imagination that it would have graced the age of Pericles” said Dr. Leonard C.Van Nappen from the Columbia University in 1915.
Today, restaurations are being made and donations for this iconic palace are most welcome (see: www.lovethepalace.com). The Exploratorium, Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception is close to the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. It was founded by Frank Oppenheimer in 1969.
San Francisco – Palace of Fine Arts.
San Francisco – Colonnade of the palace of Fine Arts.
Copyright: Wikimedia Commons
San Francisco: Palace of Fine Arts, view from the lagoon.
Copyright: Wikimedia Commons
Water Tower of the “Peyrou Gardens” – Montpellier (France)
Copyright: Wikipedia
San Francisco – Palace of fine Arts.
Copyright: Wikimedia Commons
Poster of 1915 for the Exposition featuring the “13th Labour of Hercules” the opening of the Panama Canal.
Copyright: lovethepalace.com
San Francisco – Palace of Fine Arts. Note the weeping female figures on top of the colonnade.
Copyright: wiki.worldflicks.org
San Francisco – Palace of Fine Arts – Details of the Rotunda.
Copyright: wiki.worldflicks.org
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SFO is a wonderful city and Palace of Fine Arts definitely adds to its splendor.Not many people would know of it, unless they come across this article.Thanks for a wonderful article and supporting it with such exquisite pictures!
I had never heard of this wonderful building, you always make places come alive Francois. x
It’s magestic! I don’t know why I didn’t include it in my best places to visit in SF. tsk tsk. I liked just sitting by the pond and watching the ducks swim.
The Palace of the Arts is a stunning building Francois! ~ a cracking write my friend 
It’s beautiful Francois.
I would like to visit San Fran one day.
Very lovely Greek Roman combination art!
