Palaces and Courts of the Exposition Part 2

The architectural statues - that is, those directly connected with the architecture - are of smoked-ivory tone, so that you see them as part of the architectural scheme.

Those far away from the eye, used as free statues, are, in the main, golden.

Those nearer the eye simulate bronze, the special color that seems worked out from the color of the blue eucalyptus.

All the statues of the Exposition palaces and courts are of travertine, the material of which the buildings are made.

Machinery Palace

Architects - Ward and Blohme of San Francisco.

The palace is one of grandeur, dignity and great beauty.

The architecture has been inspired by such old Roman thermae as the Baths of Caracalla, the Baths of t.i.tus and the like.

The ornamentation is of the Italian Renaissance style, worked out on a building that in form suits the needs of a great palace of machinery.

The gable points at the top of the western facade are such as one sees in the restoration of the Baths of Caracalla.

The first and only other expression of this style in America is seen in the Pennsylvania Station of New York City.

In the Transportation Palace can be seen a model of the proposed plan for a new Union Depot for Chicago, with a similar gabled effect.

The three arches reflect on the exterior the three aisles of the same portion of the palace within.

The great columns in front, and also in the vestibule, simulate Siena marble.

The entablature carried across the faces of the arches supports American eagles by C. A. Humphries.

Eagles are also seen at the corners of the Corinthian capitals. This bird of freedom can be found all over the Exposition.

Notice that Mr. Jules Guerin, the great color wizard, leads you by means of the blue ground of the capitals, the blue between the dentils, the blue between the consoles to the blue sky above.

The princ.i.p.al lighting is by great clerestory windows - great windows at the north and the south ends - also by skylights.

The building covers nine acres, and is the largest wooden structure in the world. It is about three blocks long.

The statues as well as the reliefs are by Haig Patigian of San Francisco.

Vigorous types like machinery itself are used.

The generation, transmission and application of power as applied to machinery are most interestingly represented.

The decorated drums of the columns show the Genii of Machinery.

The eyes of these figures are closed, reminding you that power comes from within.

Notice how from any point of view your figures suggest support at the sides of the drum.

The very position of the arms gives you a strong feeling of support.

The figures on the spandrels represent the application of power to machinery.

The figures on the pedestals represent:

1. "Steam Power" with the lever that starts the engine.

2. "Invention" showing a more intellectual type of face, carrying the figure with wings spread, suggesting the flight of thought. This thought, as it were, is above the world.

3. "Electricity" with foot on the earth, suggesting that electricity is not only in the earth, but around it. He carries his symbol, electricity.

4. "Imagination," showing man with his eyes closed - seeing within. The bird of inspiration, the eagle, is about to take flight.

The wings on the head suggest the rapidity of thought or action.

Inside this great palace one sees the latest inventions in machinery.

Ponderous machines capable of shaping tons of metal, great labor-saving machines, and all sorts of electrical appliances. "Safety first" is a p.r.o.nounced feature of this exhibit.

Palace of Varied Industries

Architect - W. B. Faville of San Francisco.

The high walls, averaging seventy feet to the cornice, with their respective b.u.t.tresses, are strongly suggestive of the California missions of the eighteenth century.

The "California bear" and the Seal of California are in decorative and suggestive evidence at the tops of the b.u.t.tresses.

The green domes on the palace belong to the Byzantine school of architecture, such domes as one sees in the mosques of Constantinople and other Mohammedan centers.

The windows seen in the corner towers are the same kind that one sees used in the majority of mosques.

The beautiful central portal, facing south, is modeled after the Portal of the Hospice of Santa Cruz at Toledo, Spain.

It is 16th century Spanish Renaissance, known as the Plateresque style (from platero, silversmith).

The columns suggest a wood origin and look as if they had been turned in a lathe.

The portal is the color of cork, illuminated here and there with niche walls of pink, and touches of ultramarine blue.