RON HENGGELER

In the early twentieth century, a splendid walled city of domed palaces, palm-lined courts, and monumental statuary arose on San Francisco's northern shore. The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE)—a world's fair commemorating the opening of the Panama Canal just nine years after the devastating earthquake and fires of 1906—emerged on 635 acres of land previously submerged by water.

The Panama-Pacific International Exposition was unique among world's fairs in that it could be surveyed in its entirety from the hillside to the south of the fairgrounds, as depicted in this diorama on display, and in countless panoramic photographs, illustrations, and paintings. This model, which shows approximately one third of the fairgrounds, was expertly crafted, with the grounds tipped slightly upward and the buildings foreshortened to exaggerate the viewers elevated vantage point. It was originally exhibited at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition and displayed for years at the Presidio Army Museum with a nearly 8-foot-tall painted backdrop. It has been brought out of storage on Treasure Island for this exhibition.

The fair featured eleven exhibition palaces showcasing objects from every corner of the globe, more than 1,500 sculptures commissioned from artists all over the world, 65 acres of amusement concessions, and an aviation field. Fifty California counties, forty-eight states, and twenty-one countries mounted displays in the exposition's grand pavilions. Then, after the fair closed, this ephemeral city was all but erased from the landscape. In the intervening ten months, nearly nineteen million people—about twenty times the population of San Francisco at the time—were drawn to the spectacle.

Detail of the model of the Panama Pacific International Exposition showing the Tower of Jewels

Tower of Jewels, also known as the Tower of the Sun, was the central building at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition the 1915 world's fair held in San Francisco.

Designed by architect Thomas Hastings, of the firm of Carrere and hastings, the combination triumphal arch-and-tower was 435 feet (132.59 m) tall. It was covered with more than 100,000 Novagems, cut glass "jewels" that sparkled in the sunlight, and were illuminated at night by more than fifty spotlights. Originally named just The Tower, the "appellation 'of Jewels' became an addition to the original title, after the tower was thus gorgeously arrayed."

In front of the Tower, the Fountain of Energy flowed at the center of the South Gardens, flanked by the Palace of Horticulture on the west and the Festival Hall to the east. The arch of the Tower served as the gateway to the Court of the Universe, leading to the Court of the Four Seasons to the west and the Court of Abundance to the east.

The Tower was a temporary building, constructed of staff, a combination of plaster and burlap-like fiber applied over a skeleton structure. It was demolished following the Exposition.

The story of the PPIE, officially nicknamed the "Jewel City," began more than two decades before it opened, and surprisingly gained momentum following the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906. San Francisco leaders’ first thought, as they surveyed the nearly four square miles of shattered masonry and charred wood left by the disaster, was to rebuild. Their second thought was to throw a giant celebration and invite the world to come. Perhaps a judicious course would have been to delay or cancel the world’s fair the city had contemplated since 1891, but San Francisco—steep, brash, wayward San Francisco—was never known for its prudence.

This text respectfully taken from: "An Introduction to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," excerpted from San Francisco’s Jewel City: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, © 2015 by Laura A. Ackley, all rights reserved. http://www.ppie100.org/history/

The Panama–Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) was a world's fair held in San Francisco, in the United States, between February 20 and December 4 in 1915. Its ostensible purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery from the 1906 earthquake. The fair was constructed on a 635 acre site in San Francisco, along the northern shore now known as the Marina District.

In the crowd, a child might be standing shoulder to shoulder with an actual gold rush forty-niner, a Civil War veteran, or a survivor of the Donner Party. And that same child would be transfixed by the images on her home television set sixty-four years later as she watched a man walk on the moon. The span of history witnessed by visitors to the 1915 Exposition reveals an era of astounding change. An examination of this event—perhaps the last in the original era of great world’s fairs—offers a kaleidoscope of culture and progress. The Exposition’s highs and lows echo into the twenty-first century.

This text respectfully taken from: "An Introduction to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," excerpted from San Francisco’s Jewel City: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, © 2015 by Laura A. Ackley, all rights reserved. http://www.ppie100.org/history/

Throughout the fairgrounds faux travertine provided a neutral background for the colorful murals, architectural embellishments, and lighting. The imitation stone was remarkably versatile and could be formulated for different applications, from cladding the high palace walls to modeling sculpture. The fact that architectural ornaments were hollow plaster casts rather than carved stone reduced construction time and costs. The material also afforded architects flexibility in their designs for temporary buildings that were not meant to withstand thew elements.

A. Sterling Calder, Acting Chief of Sculpture for the PPIE and father of Alexander Calder, the modernist sculptor who invented the “mobile”, contributed an astounding number of works to the Exposition’s architectural decorations. 95 of his Star Maidens stood along the attic balustrade encircling the Court of the Universe and its forecourt. All the figures comprising the sculptural elements of the Fountain of Energy which stood at the center of the South Gardens were his designs, and he collaborated with fellow sculptors, Leo Lentilli and Frederick G.R. Roth, to produce two massive figurative assemblages, The Peoples of the East, and The Peoples of the West. These reared nearly fifty feet into the air atop the massive arches which penetrated the east and west walls of the Court of the Universe.

Perched on their spheres, the Star Maidens stood nearly ten feet tall and carried Novagems at the ends of each of the rays of their diadems. Lights hidden on the roofs of the exhibition halls played on the figures after dark giving the impression that stars had fallen from the sky to adorn their headresses.

Though there were nearly one hundred of these figures produced for use in the Exposition, none of the originals appear to have survived. There are several half life-sized versions in public and private collections in both plaster and bronze, and one exquisite bronze in the scale used for the Exposition stands in the Citicorp Atrium at 1 Sansome Street, in downtown San Francisco.

In name, the celebration commemorated the United States’ completion of the Panama Canal. More importantly to the city, and to California, it was intended to replace in the eyes of the world the image of a destroyed San Francisco. Organizers hoped the international exposition would increase tourism, settlement, and investment, and spur development and cement the Golden State as a trade gateway between Europe and Asia through the newly opened waterway.

This text respectfully taken from: "An Introduction to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," excerpted from San Francisco’s Jewel City: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, © 2015 by Laura A. Ackley, all rights reserved. http://www.ppie100.org/history/

The city’s audacity was rewarded when the subsequent years of intense labor culminated in the triumphant 1915 opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. "Just think of what they have done!" said Current Opinion magazine. "San Francisco nine years ago was in ruins. To-day it is rebuilt; and…they have brought into being at the same time this superb International Exposition…." The PPIE aspired to present no less than "a microcosm so nearly complete that if all the world were destroyed except the 635 acres of land within the Exposition gates, the material basis of the life of today could have been reproduced from the exemplifications of the arts, inventions and industries there exhibited," stated the Fair’s official history. Essentially, the Exposition attempted to "curate the planet," a concept that seems grandiose and naïve by modern standards, yet was magnificent in its aspiration.

This text respectfully taken from: "An Introduction to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," excerpted from San Francisco’s Jewel City: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, © 2015 by Laura A. Ackley, all rights reserved. http://www.ppie100.org/history/

This Fair provided a lens through which to view the discoveries, celebrities, politics, arts, and zeitgeist of the era. Visitors could watch the assembly of a pair of Levi’s jeans or a brand new Ford, take in an avant-garde art display or listen to a speech by Teddy Roosevelt.

They could see a temple molded entirely from soap or a tiny rosebush made of gems—or butter. When tired of riding around a six-acre replica Grand Canyon or a five-acre model of the Panama Canal, attendees could ascend nearly three hundred feet into the sky in a "house" attached to a steel arm. If the midway did not attract, they could enjoy a daily rotation of bands, parades, pageants, and headlining entertainers, including bandmaster John Philip Sousa, renowned composer Camille Saint-Saëns, and flamboyant dancer La Loïe Fuller.

This text respectfully taken from: "An Introduction to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," excerpted from San Francisco’s Jewel City: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, © 2015 by Laura A. Ackley, all rights reserved. http://www.ppie100.org/history/

Giant Typewriter in the Underwood Typewriter Factory Booth in the Palace of Liberal Arts. 1915

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Even as the PPIE strove to present the finest of mankind’s products and achievements—a "comprehensive and representative contemporary record of the progress and condition of the human race," according to its director of exhibits—the Exposition also unintentionally exposed the evils of the era. Prurient shows and racist material were on display adjacent to booths offering delicacies, handicrafts, or the latest technologies. Radium, touted during the Fair as a source of bountiful clean power, eventually was proven lethal. The Palace of Education and Social Economy presented public health programs designed to improve quality of life around the world, but at least one ideology—eugenics—promoted what are now widely considered human rights abuses. And overshadowing every aspect of the PPIE was the Great War then engulfing half the globe.

This text respectfully taken from: "An Introduction to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," excerpted from San Francisco’s Jewel City: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, © 2015 by Laura A. Ackley, all rights reserved. http://www.ppie100.org/history/

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

A Powwow of Blackfeet Indians staged by the Great Northern railway and Glaciel National Park, 1915

The fair's representation of native Americans conformed to the historical narrative about the inevitable triumph of pioneers in conquering the Western Frontier. Indian tribes appeared in the Joy Zone and other areas of the grounds for the entertainment of fairgoers.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Japanese Pavilion and Gardens, 1915

On February 24,1915 the Japanese Pavilion of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition was dedicated. In San Francisco's Jewel City, historian Laura Ackley writes: During the ceremony, Exposition president Charles C. Moore’s daughter, Josephine, pulled a silken cord and released water into a stream running through the country’s site. The winding waterway coursed under delicate arched bridges before tumbling down a cataract and into a miniature lake. Japan’s buildings, with latticed windows and curving eaves, were set within nearly four acres of manicured gardens and meandering paths. The Kinkaku-ji Temple, or Golden Pavilion of Kyoto, was the model for the largest structure in the compound, which included stone pagodas, two public teahouses, and a small sctures the tea ceremony.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Chinese Government Pavilions, 1915

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

A view of the rooms at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

A view of the rooms at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

RACISM ON THE ZONE

While many of the ethnically themes attractions presented respectful, though sometimes inauthentic, portraits of foreign cultures, others were overly racist. Grotesquely exaggerated depictions of African tribesmen formed the exteriors of two attractions. Inside, patrons tried to knock the hats off figures representing foreign countries by throwing balls at them.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

A view of the rooms at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

The Joy Zone 1915

Among the exhibits at the Exposition was the C. P. Huntington, the first steam locomotive purchased by Southern Pacific Railroad; the locomotive is now on static display at the California State railroad Museum in Sacramento. A telephone line was also established to New York so people across the continent could hear the Pacific Ocean. The Liberty Bell traveled by train on a nationwide tour from Pennsylvania to attend the exposition. After that trip, the Liberty Bell returned to Philadelphia and has not made any further journeys since.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Woman standing amid the Panama Canal Exhibit on the Zone 1915

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Box Set of Four Novagems 1915

The Tower of Jewels, which rose to 435 feet and was covered with over 100,000 cut glass Novagems. The 3⁄4 to 2 inch colored "gems" sparkled in sunlight throughout the day and were illuminated by over 50 powerful electrical searchlights at night.

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Constructed from temporary materials (primarily staff, a combination of plaster and burlap fiber), almost all the fair's various buildings and attractions were pulled down in late 1915. Intended to fall into pieces at the close of the fair (reportedly because the architect believed every great city needed ruins), the only surviving building on the Exposition grounds, Bernard Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts remained in place, slowly falling into disrepair (although the hall used to display painting and sculpture during the Fair was repurposed as a garage for jeeps during World War 11 The Palace, including the colonnade with its signature weeping women and rotunda dome, was completely reconstructed in the 1960s and a seismic retrofit was completed in early 2009.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

The centerpiece was the Tower of Jewels which rose to 435 feet and was covered with over 100,000 cut glass Novagems. The 3⁄4 to 2 inch colored "gems" sparkled in sunlight throughout the day and were illuminated by over 50 powerful electrical searchlights at night.

In front of the Tower, the Fountain of Energy flowed at the center of the South Gardens, flanked by the Palace of Horticulture on the west and the Festival Hall to the east. The arch of the Tower served as the gateway to the Court of the Universe, leading to the Court of the Four Seasons to the west and the Court of Abundance to the east. These courts formed the primary exhibit area for the fair, which included the Food Products Palace, the Education and Social Economy Palace, the Agriculture Palace, the Liberal Arts Palace, the Transportation Palace, the Manufacturers Palace, the Mines and Metallurgy Palace, and the Varied Industries Palace. The Machinery Palace, the largest hall, dominated the east end of the central court.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

 

A plaster cast detail from one of the buildings, in addition to chips showing the pallet of various colors used on the buildings at the fair

 

Festival Hall 1915

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Palace of Horticulture 1915

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Two Women with Sculpted Head 1914

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Mesembryanthemum Hedge 1915

Our generation thinks that we created the green wall. However, 100 years ago, the "mesembryanthemum hedge" at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition was twenty feet high and 1150 feet long and far surpasses any current day green wall I've ever seen or heard about.

The hedge ran west from the Fillmore Street gate past the Scott Street Entrance and then an additional block south on Divisadero - "A wall of delicate and tender green...pink blossoms of dazzling metallic brilliance..."

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

 

ILLUMINATING THE FAIR

An extravagant show of colorful lights shot across building facades and danced in the sky above the exposition. Rejecting the standard practice of "outline lighting", which traced the contours of buildings with rows of bulbs, Walter D'Arcy Ryan of the General Electric Company forever changed architectural illumination with his innovative scheme. The most spectacular effects came from the installation of forty-eight giant spotlights sitting atop a miniature Morro Castle on the waterfront. Called the Great Scintillator, it was manned by Marines who moved the spotlights to project changing colors and patterns on the canvas of fog that rolled in from the Golden Gate. When the weather failed to cooperate, tubes hidden in flagpoles pumped smoke and steam from a locomotive engine into the sky. Bursts of steam that shot through the beams mimicked fireworks during celebrations.Ryan also designed an electric kaleidoscope inside the glass dome of the Palace of Horticulture and lit the palaces, courts, and Joy Zone in novel ways. This synthesis of art and technology cost an estimated $52,000, about $1.23 million today.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Marines and The Giant Scintillator 1915

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Workers Coloring the Light Globes in Pastel Colors 1914

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

A view of the rooms at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair.

Detail of the model of the Panama Pacific International Exposition

Detail of the model of the Panama Pacific International Exposition

Detail of the model of the Panama Pacific International Exposition showing the Palace of Fine Arts

The Zone

Detail of the model of the Panama Pacific International Exposition

Detail of the model of the Panama Pacific International Exposition showing the Italian Towers

Detail of the model of the Panama Pacific International Exposition showing the Tower of Jewels

 

The Trail of the End, Illuminations marking the end of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition 1915

The exposition closed on December 4, 1915, a day of commemorative events that concluded with fireworks trailing from pilot Art Smith's "aeroplane".Over the next year, the grounds were mostly cleared of all evidence of the fair. Even water, power, and gas lines were removed so that land could be returned to owners in restored condition. Building were either sold for scrap or moved to other locations. A number of repurposed buildings, as well as murals and architectural elements survive today. Only the beloved Palace of fine Arts--rebuild and restored-- remains in its original location. Perspiration efforts, substantially underwritten by Phoebe Apperson Hearst, began even before the fair closed.

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Deconstruction of the Italian Tower, c.1916

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Fall of the Arch of the Rising Sun, c. 1916

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

Deconstruction of the Panama Pacific International Exposition c.1916

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

The Ohio Building being floated to Coyote Point c. 1916

My photo of a photo that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

My photo of a poster that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

My photo of a poster that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

My photo of a poster that is on display at the California Historical Society's show City Rising, San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair

To view some of my photos of the Palace of Fine Arts, go to:

http://www.ronhenggeler.com/San%20Francisco/Palace...