In conjunction with the Architecture and the City festival, the San Francisco History Center presents a selection of original architectural renderings and other images which give inklings of a city very different from the one we know today. We encourage you to come view the exhibition Unbuilt San Francisco: Public Spaces on the 6th floor of the Main Library. What's on the 6th Floor will be highlighting selections weekly to tempt you to visit! The collaborative exhibition includes AIA San Francisco, Center for Architecture + Design; Environmental Design Archives at UC Berkeley; California Historical Society; SPUR; and, the San Francisco Public Library.
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| Proposed Site of the Panama Pacific Exposition West End Golden Gate Park, 1910 |
Robert Behlow (1856-1935)
Baumgartner, O’Brien & Reynolds, delineators
Proposed Site of the Panama Pacific Exposition West End Golden Gate Park, 1910
lithograph, 20.25 x 26.75”
An international exposition was first proposed for San Francisco by businessman Reuben B. Hale in 1904. While funding was being secured, the earthquake of 1906 struck, and the funding bill died, as well. Interest in a world’s fair did not die; the Panama-Pacific International Exposition was incorporated March 22, 1910 by San Francisco merchants and other citizens. The Exposition would celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, as well as showcase the rebuilt city.
This proposal for a site for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition was published in the San Francisco Chronicle November 23, 1910. San Francisco Chronicle publisher (and an Exposition director) Michel H. de Young pushed for Golden Gate Park as the Exposition site; his California Midwinter Exposition, held there in 1894, had seen lackluster attendance. The groundbreaking for the Fair occurred on October 14, 1911 in Golden Gate Park with President Taft in attendance. De Young eventually voted with a majority to site the Fair in Harbor View, now known as the Marina District. Behlow’s occupation was real estate.
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| Site of the Great Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1911 |
Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912) and Charles W. Leavitt (1871-1928)
Virgil Theodore Nahl (1876-1930), illustrator
Site of the Great Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1911
lithograph, 13.75 x 32”
“During the first six months of 1911, the attention of the Board of Directors was mainly centered on the work of choosing a site. The public was also interested, and San Francisco had many good sites. There were suggested: Lake Merced, Tanforan, Islais Creek, Bay View, Lincoln Park, Golden Gate Park, a Water Front plan, and there was Harbor View with connecting links to Telegraph Hill, Lincoln Park and Golden Gate Park. The Board voted upon a number of schemes in June 1911, but did not reach conclusions.”A.H. Markwart, Building an Exposition; Report of the Activities of the Division of Works of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition ... (San Francisco: Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915)
Nahl’s rendering was published in the San Francisco Examiner July 26, 1911; a special committee had recommended this hybrid plan the previous day. “The plan of the site as selected is announced as large[ly] a combination of the ideas expressed respectively by Messrs. Burnham and Leavitt,” the Examiner reported. Leavitt, a prominent New York landscape architect, favored this combination of waterfront and park. By October, Burnham’s partner architect Edward H. Bennett had been selected to assist the Exposition’s architectural commission in developing a comprehensive design. (Burnham’s actual involvement may have been minimal.) Chiefly due to financial considerations, and taking into account the level expanse of the Harbor View site, the Buildings and Grounds Committee voted for that specific site December 19, 1911. Use of United States Military Reservations of the Presidio and Fort Mason was later granted by the War Department.
Interested in learning more about was built at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition? Visit the San Francisco History Center to view the San Francisco Ephemera Collection, publications, original photographs, postcards, and artifacts. Or start online with the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection and our past peeks into PPIE. Of course, we're already doing preparations for the centennial!
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