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Large city parks were the newest fashion trend for urban planners in the middle of the 19th century. Alonzo Horton, developer of the Downtown waterfront, decided that since New York and San Francisco now had parks, San Diego should have one too— never mind that the population was less than 3,000. In 1868 he persuaded the city’s Board of Trustees to set aside 486 hectares north of Downtown for what was originally called City Park. The park was a rather undistinguished grassland until the 1915 Panama-California International Exposition put it on the map.
“World’s Fairs” and “Expositions” were immensely popular in the early
20th century, so city officials were sure that a two-year Exposition
tied to the opening of the Panama Canal would attract plenty of visitors
(and revenue). Organizers hired New York architect Bertram Goodhue to
design the Exposition grounds. Goodhue’s concept was to exploit San
Diego’s Spanish heritage with an idealized 17th century Spanish Colonial
promenade. He succeeded spectacularly. The Exposition gave San Diego a
collection of distinctive museums, which later expanded for the
California-Pacific International Exposition in 1935. It also popularized
“Spanish Colonial Revival” architecture— a style that arguably reached
its apotheosis in Santa Barbara’s County Courthouse— and led to all those fanciful
Spanish street names that continue to proliferate throughout Southern
California. City Park got a new name to commemorate Vasco
Núñez de Balboa, who crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513
to “discover” the Pacific Ocean (though he never got anywhere near
California).
Goodhue laid out the Exposition grounds along an east-west walk
called El Prado, after Madrid’s Paseo del Prado with its famous museum.
The California Building, at the west end of El Prado, is the distinctive
architectural signature of Balboa Park— and perhaps of San Diego
as well. Goodhue mixed, matched, sliced, and diced a variety of Spanish
and Mexican architectural styles he had studied during extensive travels
in Mexico. The most notable feature is a 61-meter three-stage bell tower
visible (and audible) throughout the park, inspired by church towers in
Spain and Mexico.
The Alcazar Garden offers a view of the tower favored by artists and
photographers. First planted with flowers for the 1915 Exposition as the
Montezuma Garden, the organizers of the 1935 Exposition renamed it to
invoke the gardens of the Alcazar Castle in Seville, Spain.
The south facade of the California Building (the main entrance) was
apparently inspired by a church in Tepotzotlan, Mexico. Its ornate stone
carvings in the Spanish Baroque “Churrigueresque” style include statues
of nine figures from the Spanish and Mexican history of San Diego. There
are also the coats of arms of Spain, Mexico, and the United States.
Ruffles and flourishes fill in any gaps to leave no bit of stone
uncarved. (The facade is actually made of cast concrete. A 1975
restoration made the crumbling facade permanent with epoxy resin.) The
California Building now houses the Museum of Man, an anthropology museum
that was obviously named in the days before political correctness.
As if the tower and south facade weren’t enough, Goodhue outfitted
the California Building with a dome. Inspired by the Byzantine dome of
the Hagia Sophia church in Istanbul, it provides an eclectic break from
El Prado’s Spanish theme. But it’s not a complete break, since the
covering of mosaic tiles includes a starburst design borrowed from a
church in Taxco, Mexico. The text written in tiles along the bottom of
the dome is Mosaic in all senses of the word. It’s the Latin Vulgate
version of
Deuteronomy 8:8— A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig
trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey. That text
originally referred to the Promised Land of Israel, in what might be
the prototypical real estate agent’s spiel. But here it’s promoting
California, a promising land where those crops also grow in a similar
Mediterranean climate.
On the east side of the building, a fountain with whimsical,
frizzy-haired figures spits water, as if mocking the eclectic
pretensions of Goodhue’s mélange.
The San Diego Museum of Art includes an outdoor sculpture garden with
20th century pieces by Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Louise Nevelson,
and others.
The Foreign Arts Building on El Prado was one of several temporary
structures built for the 1915 Exposition. For the 1935 Exposition it was
renamed the House of Hospitality and extensively remodeled with a
courtyard inspired by the State Museum in Guadalajara, Mexico. The
courtyard’s centerpiece is a fountain built around Donal Hord’s Woman
of Tehuantepec sculpture. Demolished and completely rebuilt in 1997,
the House of Hospitality contains Balboa Park’s visitor center and an
upscale restaurant. That rebuilding project was funded with an increase
in the city’s hotel tax, as San Diegans consistently vote down bond
issues to pay for historical restoration.
The Botanical Building off El Prado is reputedly the most photographed
(and painted) subject in San Diego. 76 meters long, 23 meters wide, and
18 meters high, it was the world’s largest wood lath structure when it
was built in 1915. A steel infrastructure holds the lath in place.
Goodhue had planned a building inspired by a Spanish Renaissance palace,
but for reasons now lost he ended up with a much simplified design. A
reflecting pool with water lilies, inspired by similar pools Goodhue had
seen on a trip to Persia (now called Iran), provides a foreground for
untold millions of pictures.
Inside the Botanical Building are some 2,100 permanent tropical plants,
along with floral displays that change with the seasons. Since the
building is an open redwood lattice that is at least partially exposed
to the elements, I have no idea how they keep the tropical plants like
this pitcher plant comfortable during the winter. Despite what Hollywood
and tourist offices would like you to believe, winter nights in Southern
California can get rather chilly.
The most popular part of Balboa Park has no Spanish Colonial Revival
architecture. But the San Diego Zoo did get its start with a collection
of foreign animals left over from the 1915 Exposition. It has since
grown to include more than 800 species of animals, many of them rare or
endangered, and a botanic garden with 700,000 exotic plants.
The Zoo does have its theme-park aspects to keep human larvae suitably entertained, including performing animal shows, rides, and humans dressed as cute animal characters. But it’s also a serious institution devoted to research on conservation and captive breeding of endangered species. This is one “family attraction” that adults can enjoy, although it’s more enjoyable at times other than the crowded summer.
The Zoo isn’t the only place to find animals in Balboa Park. On sunny
weekends all sorts of people— and their dogs— gather to
picnic, watch street performers, visit the museums, and enjoy the
sunshine.
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