This Palace of Fine Arts is beautiful and makes no sense as an outdoor structure. It's not much of a garden, it has no facilities and isn't really big enough for a city-scale public event. So what is it? Turns out it had a fascinating role in revitalizing San Francisco and the surrounding area after the devastating 1906 earthquake. The building that's there now is just a small, fully reconstructed part of the sprawling 1915 Panama-Pacific Expo.
It also had a role in The Rock, and I looked everywhere but did not see Sean Connery.
3 comments:
I can almost see this from my work. Oh yeah it's the part where Sean Connery is talking to his estranged daughter on the benches! I heard the original structure was just plaster of Paris and was only meant to last for the length of the expo.
Yeah, they have pictures there of it once it fell apart... looks like it had been made of paper mache and sticks originally. And hi! What are you doing for work?
The Palace was very recently renovated, and is quite lovely, and is favorite spot for wedding photos:
SAN FRANCISCO -- One of San Francisco's most beloved landmarks reopened to the public Friday after a seven-year, $21 million renovation.
The extensive overhaul of the Palace of Fine Arts included seismic upgrades, the addition of new entrances and pathways, and the replacement of the rotunda floor and the roof of its dome.
The 95-year-old site is the only original structure left from the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. With its 30 Corinthian columns framing the palace walkway and 1,100-foot-wide rotunda, it was designed to resemble a Roman ruin reflected in a lake.
For its reopening, city leaders and residents praised the palace while passersby pushed strollers or walked dogs along the paths surrounding the newly restored lagoon, stopping to admire its famous white swans.
The project was a public-private partnership between San Francisco and the nonprofit Maybeck Foundation, named after the palace's architect, Bernard Maybeck. It was funded by a combination of city and state funds and contributions from over 1,200 donors.
It was rebuilt in the 1930s and again in the 1960s before the latest renovations began in 2003.
Source:http://www.ktvu.com/news/26497094/detail.html
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