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Panama–California Exposition
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Panama–California Exposition
The Panama–California Exposition was a world exposition held in San Diego, California, between January 1, 1915, and January 1, 1917. The exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to tout San Diego as the first United States port of call for ships traveling north after passing through the canal into the Pacific Ocean. The fair was held in San Diego's large urban Balboa Park. The park held a second Panama-California exposition in 1935.
In 1909, San Diego's Chamber of Commerce president and local businessman Gilbert Aubrey Davidson proposed an exposition to commemorate the completion of the Panama Canal. San Diego's population in 1910 was 37,578, and it would be the least populated city to ever host an international exposition. In contrast, San Francisco had a population nearly 10 times larger and would ultimately be supported by politicians in California and Washington, D.C. for the official Panama Canal exposition, the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. Although representatives from San Francisco urged San Diego to end its planning, San Diego pressed forward for a simultaneous exposition. Several San Franciscans persuaded both members of Congress and President William Howard Taft to deny support for San Diego's exposition in exchange for pledged political support for Taft's campaign against Republicans. With no federal and little state government funding, San Diego's exposition would be on a smaller scale with fewer states and countries participating.
The Panama–California Exposition Company was formed in September 1909 and its board of directors was soon led by Ulysses S. Grant Jr. as president of the company and with John D. Spreckels as vice president. After Grant resigned in November 1911, real estate developer "Colonel" D. C. Collier, was made president of the exposition. He was responsible for selecting both the location in the city park and the Pueblo Revival and Mission Revival architectural styles. Collier was tasked with steering the exposition in "the proper direction," ensuring that every decision made reflected his vision of what the exposition could accomplish. Collier once stated "The purpose of the Panama–California Exposition is to illustrate the progress and possibility of the human race, not for the exposition only, but for a permanent contribution to the world's progress." The exposition's leadership changed again in early March 1914, when Collier encountered personal financial issues and resigned. He was replaced by Davidson, who was also joined by several new vice presidents.
By March 1910, $1 million ($34,553,571 today) was raised for the expo by the Panama–California Exposition Company through selling subscriptions[clarification needed]. A bond measure later that year provided an additional $1 million solely for improving permanent fixtures in the park. Funding for the California State Building was provided through appropriation bills totaling $450,000 ($15,549,107 today) signed by Governor Hiram Johnson in 1911 and 1913.
Fair officials first sought architect John Galen Howard as their supervisory architect. With Howard unavailable, on January 27, 1911, they chose New York architect Bertram Goodhue and appointed Irving Gill to assist him. By September 1911 Gill had resigned and was replaced by Carleton Winslow of Goodhue's office. The original landscape architects, the Olmsted Brothers, likewise left the project, and were replaced by fair official Frank P. Allen Jr.
The exposition was held in Balboa Park, which spanned 1,400 acres (570 ha). For the first few decades of its existence, "City Park" remained mostly open space; lacking trees and covered in native wildflowers, the park was home to bobcats, rattlesnakes, coyotes, and other wildlife. Numerous proposals, some altruistic, some profit-driven, were brought forward for the development and use of the land during this time. During construction of the exposition facilities in 1910, a contest was held that renamed the park after Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to cross Central America and see the Pacific Ocean.
Goodhue and Winslow advocated a design that turned away from the more modest, indigenous, horizontally oriented Pueblo Revival and Mission Revival, towards a more ornate and urban Spanish Baroque. Contrasting with bare walls, rich Mexican and Spanish Churrigueresque decoration would be used, with influences from the Islamic and Persian styles in Moorish Revival architecture. For American world's fairs, this was a novelty. The design was an intentional contrast to most previous Eastern U.S. and European expositions, which had been done in neoclassical and Beaux-Arts styles, with large formal buildings around large symmetric spaces; San Francisco's Panama–Pacific International Exposition was largely Beaux-Arts style. Goodhue had already experimented with Spanish Baroque in Havana, at the 1905 La Santisima Trinidad pro-cathedral, and the Hotel Colon in Panama. Some of his specific stylistic sources for San Diego are the Giralda Tower at the Seville Cathedral, the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, Oaxaca.
Goodhue personally designed the largest and most ornate building on the site, the California Building, with its historical iconography; he sketched two other buildings, provided Winslow and Allen with his photographs and drawings from examples in Spain and Mexico, and reviewed their developed designs. The original ensemble of buildings featured various stylistic and period references. Taken together, they constituted something like a recapitulated history of Spanish colonial in North America, from Renaissance Europe sources, to Spanish colonial, to Mexican Baroque, to the vernacular styles adopted by the Franciscan missions up the California coast. The Botanical Building was designed by Winslow with help from Allen and Thomas B. Hunter in the style of a Spanish Renaissance greenhouse. This mix of influences is representative of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, which the Exposition popularized in the United States. Prior to the exposition, San Diego had predominately featured Victorian architecture with some elements of classical styles. The popularity of the expo led to more emphasis on mission architecture within the city.[citation needed]
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Panama–California Exposition
The Panama–California Exposition was a world exposition held in San Diego, California, between January 1, 1915, and January 1, 1917. The exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to tout San Diego as the first United States port of call for ships traveling north after passing through the canal into the Pacific Ocean. The fair was held in San Diego's large urban Balboa Park. The park held a second Panama-California exposition in 1935.
In 1909, San Diego's Chamber of Commerce president and local businessman Gilbert Aubrey Davidson proposed an exposition to commemorate the completion of the Panama Canal. San Diego's population in 1910 was 37,578, and it would be the least populated city to ever host an international exposition. In contrast, San Francisco had a population nearly 10 times larger and would ultimately be supported by politicians in California and Washington, D.C. for the official Panama Canal exposition, the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. Although representatives from San Francisco urged San Diego to end its planning, San Diego pressed forward for a simultaneous exposition. Several San Franciscans persuaded both members of Congress and President William Howard Taft to deny support for San Diego's exposition in exchange for pledged political support for Taft's campaign against Republicans. With no federal and little state government funding, San Diego's exposition would be on a smaller scale with fewer states and countries participating.
The Panama–California Exposition Company was formed in September 1909 and its board of directors was soon led by Ulysses S. Grant Jr. as president of the company and with John D. Spreckels as vice president. After Grant resigned in November 1911, real estate developer "Colonel" D. C. Collier, was made president of the exposition. He was responsible for selecting both the location in the city park and the Pueblo Revival and Mission Revival architectural styles. Collier was tasked with steering the exposition in "the proper direction," ensuring that every decision made reflected his vision of what the exposition could accomplish. Collier once stated "The purpose of the Panama–California Exposition is to illustrate the progress and possibility of the human race, not for the exposition only, but for a permanent contribution to the world's progress." The exposition's leadership changed again in early March 1914, when Collier encountered personal financial issues and resigned. He was replaced by Davidson, who was also joined by several new vice presidents.
By March 1910, $1 million ($34,553,571 today) was raised for the expo by the Panama–California Exposition Company through selling subscriptions[clarification needed]. A bond measure later that year provided an additional $1 million solely for improving permanent fixtures in the park. Funding for the California State Building was provided through appropriation bills totaling $450,000 ($15,549,107 today) signed by Governor Hiram Johnson in 1911 and 1913.
Fair officials first sought architect John Galen Howard as their supervisory architect. With Howard unavailable, on January 27, 1911, they chose New York architect Bertram Goodhue and appointed Irving Gill to assist him. By September 1911 Gill had resigned and was replaced by Carleton Winslow of Goodhue's office. The original landscape architects, the Olmsted Brothers, likewise left the project, and were replaced by fair official Frank P. Allen Jr.
The exposition was held in Balboa Park, which spanned 1,400 acres (570 ha). For the first few decades of its existence, "City Park" remained mostly open space; lacking trees and covered in native wildflowers, the park was home to bobcats, rattlesnakes, coyotes, and other wildlife. Numerous proposals, some altruistic, some profit-driven, were brought forward for the development and use of the land during this time. During construction of the exposition facilities in 1910, a contest was held that renamed the park after Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to cross Central America and see the Pacific Ocean.
Goodhue and Winslow advocated a design that turned away from the more modest, indigenous, horizontally oriented Pueblo Revival and Mission Revival, towards a more ornate and urban Spanish Baroque. Contrasting with bare walls, rich Mexican and Spanish Churrigueresque decoration would be used, with influences from the Islamic and Persian styles in Moorish Revival architecture. For American world's fairs, this was a novelty. The design was an intentional contrast to most previous Eastern U.S. and European expositions, which had been done in neoclassical and Beaux-Arts styles, with large formal buildings around large symmetric spaces; San Francisco's Panama–Pacific International Exposition was largely Beaux-Arts style. Goodhue had already experimented with Spanish Baroque in Havana, at the 1905 La Santisima Trinidad pro-cathedral, and the Hotel Colon in Panama. Some of his specific stylistic sources for San Diego are the Giralda Tower at the Seville Cathedral, the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, Oaxaca.
Goodhue personally designed the largest and most ornate building on the site, the California Building, with its historical iconography; he sketched two other buildings, provided Winslow and Allen with his photographs and drawings from examples in Spain and Mexico, and reviewed their developed designs. The original ensemble of buildings featured various stylistic and period references. Taken together, they constituted something like a recapitulated history of Spanish colonial in North America, from Renaissance Europe sources, to Spanish colonial, to Mexican Baroque, to the vernacular styles adopted by the Franciscan missions up the California coast. The Botanical Building was designed by Winslow with help from Allen and Thomas B. Hunter in the style of a Spanish Renaissance greenhouse. This mix of influences is representative of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, which the Exposition popularized in the United States. Prior to the exposition, San Diego had predominately featured Victorian architecture with some elements of classical styles. The popularity of the expo led to more emphasis on mission architecture within the city.[citation needed]
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