The Palace of Fine Arts

“…foliage should be high and romantic avoiding all stiff lines.”[1] – Bernard Maybeck, 1914

The last of the fair buildings to be completed, the Palace of Fine Arts evoked a melancholy romantic note in its architecture and in its landscape, which was originally assigned to Willis Polk, head of the PPIE’s architectural committee. Maybeck, intrigued by the proposed site of the fine arts building, created a rough sketch that was later presented to the Architectural Commission. Maybeck’s sketch depicting a long curved gallery, rotunda, and elliptical colonnade was so well received he was chosen to design the Palace. Knowing it was only a temporary structure, Maybeck intended the plantings on the columns and the “maidens weeping over the lost arts” to resemble a Piranesian ruin as they gradually crumbled. Both lawns and a lagoon were studied as part of Maybeck’s design for the landscape surrounding the Palace.