Lineage of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco

1. The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco
Precedents and Legacies
The Tholos Tradition:
A round building with a ring of columns supporting a domed roof
Assembled by Arthur Chandler, 2019

2. The Palace of Fine Arts in 1915
Keystone Stereo Pair of the Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama Pacific International Exposition
San Francisco, California, 1915

3. The Palace of Fine Arts and Lagoon in 1915
By Edwin Deakin

4. The Tholos at Delphi

5. “Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, ” first century b.c.
Painting by Hubert Robert (1733-1808)

6. Temple of Hercules Victor
Rome, Second Century B.C.

7. The Folly: an Eighteenth Century Revival of the Circular Temple Form in a Pastoral Setting
Temple of Ancient Virtue
Buckinghamshire, England, 1737

8. Bagatelle Château
Paris, France, 1775

9. Temple of Philosophy
Ermenonville, France, 18th Century
Temple of Philosophy todayPainting by Hubert Robert, 1798
Some sources state that the Temple of Philosophy was left unfinished on purpose,
perhaps to suggest the passage of time and the triumph of time over human endeavor.

10. The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco continues the tradition of using a tholos to represent the melancholy passage
of time. The architect of the Palace, Bernard Maybeck, explicitly stated that he wished for this work to fall into ruins,
planted with vines and trees, to suggest the impermanence of human achievement and the ultimate triumph of nature.

11. However, in the years after the closure of the Panama Pacific exposition, the building simple crumbled in to an unsightly
and even dangerous decay. The staff and lathe structure of the Palace did not gently decay. It simply fell apart.

12. Ain 196X, a committee was formed to save the Palace of Fine Arts by completely rebuilding it with more permanent
materials. Maybeck plans survived, so the rebuilders had an accurate record of all the components of the building.

13. The original building was torn down completely:

15. Concrete supplied the inner strength of the new Palace

16. The damaged sculptures were restored.

17. Two Views of the Palace of Fine Arts in the 21st Century
The Palace of Fine Arts by Day

18. The Palace of Fine Arts at Night

19. Legacies of the Palace of Fine Arts
The Pulgas Water Temple
San Mateo County, California, 1934

21. Walt Disney’s Golden Dreams Building
Demolished in 2009

22. Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
Opened 2011

23. From Religion to Philosophy to Entertainment