Produced by David Schwan
Panama-Pacific International Exposition
The Jewel City:
Its Planning and Achievement; Its Architecture, Sculpture, Symbolism,and Music; Its Gardens, Palaces, and Exhibits
By
Ben Macomber
With Colored Frontispiece and more than Seventy-Five Other Illustrations
Introduction
No more accurate account of the Panama-Pacific International Expositionhas been given than one that was forced from the lips of a charmingEastern woman of culture. Walking one evening in the Fine Artscolonnade, while the illumination from distant searchlights accented theglory of Maybeck's masterpiece, and lit up the half-domes and archesacross the lagoon, she exclaimed to her companion: "Why, all the beautyof the world has been sifted, and the finest of it assembled here!"
This simple phrase, the involuntary outburst of a traveled visitor, willbe echoed by thousands who feel the magic of what the master artists andarchitects of America have done here in celebration of the Panama Canal.I put the "artists" first, because this Exposition has set a newstandard. Among all the great international expositions previously heldin the United States, as well as those abroad, it had been the fashionfor managers to order a manufactures building from one architect, amachinery hall from another, a fine arts gallery from a third. Theseworked almost independently. Their structures, separately, were oftenbeautiful; together, they seldom indicated any kinship or commonpurpose. When the buildings were completed, the artists were called into soften their disharmonies with such sculptural and horticulturaldecoration as might be possible.
The Exposition in San Francisco is the first, though it will not be thelast, to subject its architecture to a definite artistic motive. Howthis came about it is the object of the present book to tell,—how theExposition was planned as an appropriate expression of America's joy inthe completion of the Canal, and how its structures, commemorating thepeaceful meeting of the nations through that great waterway, have fitlybeen made to represent the art of the entire world, yet with such unityand originality as to give new interest to the ancient forms, and withsuch a wealth of appropriate symbolism in color, sculpture and muralpainting as to make its great courts, towers and arches an inspiringstory of Nature's beneficence and Man's progress.
Much of Mr. Macomber's text was written originally for The San FranciscoChronicle, to which acknowledgment is made for its permission to reprinthis papers. The popularity of these articles, which have been runningsince February, has testified to their usefulness. In many cases theyhave been preserved and passed from hand to hand. They have also won theendorsement of liberal use in other publications. It is proper to say,however, that similarity of language sometimes indicates a commonfollowing of the artists' own explanations of their work, made public bythe Exposition management.
Mr. Macomber has revised and amplified his chapters hitherto published,and has added others briefly outlining the history of the Exposition,and dealing with the fine-arts, industrial, and livestock exhibits, theforeign and state buildings, music, sports, aviation, and the amusementsection. Apart from the smaller guides, the book is thus the first toattempt any comprehensive description of the Exposition. Withoutindiscriminate praise, or sacrificing independent judgment, the author'spurpose has been to interpre