The City of Domes [3]
negotiating and appeals to the public spirit of the owners, it was adjusted. About seven hundred thousand dollars was paid for leases and about three hundred thousand dollars for property bought outright.
The Director of Works
While President Moore was looking for the man he wanted to appoint as head of the board of construction, Harris D. H. Connick called to suggest and to recommend another man. Later the president offered Connick the position as director of works.
Connick had exactly the qualifications needed: experience, youth, energy, skill and executive ability. He hesitated for the reason that he happened to be engaged in public work that he wished to finish. But he was made to see that the new work was more important. He removed all the buildings at Harbor View, about 150, and he filled in the ponds, using two million cubic yards of mud and sand, and building an elaborate system of sewers. The filling in took about six months. On the last day mules were at work on the new land. And within a year the ground work and the underground work was finished.
The Architects
Meanwhile, President Moore asked for a meeting of the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, with more than 250 members. He explained that his purpose was to have them, select twelve representatives from whom he should himself appoint five to act as an architectural board. When the board was formed with Willis Polk at its head, it included John Galen Howard, Albert Pissis, William Curlett, and Clarence R. Ward. This board was dissolved and an executive council composed of Polk, Ward and W. B. Faville was put in charge. Later it gave way to a commission consisting of W. B. Faville, Arthur Brown, George W. Kelham, Louis Christian Mullgardt, and Clarence R. Ward, of San Francisco; Robert Farquhar, of Los Angeles; Carrere & Hastings, McKim, Mead & White, and Henry Bacon, of New York, When it had completed the preliminary plans the board discontinued its meetings and G. W. Kelham was appointed Chief of Architecture.
The Block Plan
At the first meeting President Moore explained that, at the St. Louis Exposition, according to wide-expressed opinions, the buildings had been too far apart. He favored maximum of space with minimum of distance. The architects first considered the conditions they had to meet, climate and physical surroundings. They were mainly influenced by wind, cold and rain.
The result was that for the Protection of visitors, they agreed to follow what was later to be generally known, as the block plan, the buildings arranged in, four blocks, joined by covered corridors and surrounded by a wall, with three central courts and two half-courts in the south wall. It had been developed in many talks among the architects. Valuable suggestions came from Willis Polk and from E. H. Bennett, of Chicago, active in the earlier consultations. The plan finally accepted was the joint work of the entire commission.
Twelve buildings were put under contract, each designed to illustrate an epoch of architecture, ranging from the severity of the early classic to the ornate French renaissance of to-day.
The Architecture
From the start it was realized that, vast as the Exposition was to be, representing styles of architecture almost sensationally different, it must nevertheless suggest that it was all of a piece. The relation of San Francisco to the Orient provided the clue. It was fitting that on the shores of San Francisco Bay, where ships to and from the Orient were continually plying, there should rise an Oriental city. The idea had a special appeal in providing a reason for extensive color effects. The bay, in spite of the California sunshine, somewhat bleak, needed to be helped out with color. The use of color by the Orientals had abundantly justified itself as an integral part of architecture. The Greeks and the Romans had accepted it and applied it even in their statuary. It was, moreover, associated with those Spanish and Mexican buildings characteristic of the early days
The Director of Works
While President Moore was looking for the man he wanted to appoint as head of the board of construction, Harris D. H. Connick called to suggest and to recommend another man. Later the president offered Connick the position as director of works.
Connick had exactly the qualifications needed: experience, youth, energy, skill and executive ability. He hesitated for the reason that he happened to be engaged in public work that he wished to finish. But he was made to see that the new work was more important. He removed all the buildings at Harbor View, about 150, and he filled in the ponds, using two million cubic yards of mud and sand, and building an elaborate system of sewers. The filling in took about six months. On the last day mules were at work on the new land. And within a year the ground work and the underground work was finished.
The Architects
Meanwhile, President Moore asked for a meeting of the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, with more than 250 members. He explained that his purpose was to have them, select twelve representatives from whom he should himself appoint five to act as an architectural board. When the board was formed with Willis Polk at its head, it included John Galen Howard, Albert Pissis, William Curlett, and Clarence R. Ward. This board was dissolved and an executive council composed of Polk, Ward and W. B. Faville was put in charge. Later it gave way to a commission consisting of W. B. Faville, Arthur Brown, George W. Kelham, Louis Christian Mullgardt, and Clarence R. Ward, of San Francisco; Robert Farquhar, of Los Angeles; Carrere & Hastings, McKim, Mead & White, and Henry Bacon, of New York, When it had completed the preliminary plans the board discontinued its meetings and G. W. Kelham was appointed Chief of Architecture.
The Block Plan
At the first meeting President Moore explained that, at the St. Louis Exposition, according to wide-expressed opinions, the buildings had been too far apart. He favored maximum of space with minimum of distance. The architects first considered the conditions they had to meet, climate and physical surroundings. They were mainly influenced by wind, cold and rain.
The result was that for the Protection of visitors, they agreed to follow what was later to be generally known, as the block plan, the buildings arranged in, four blocks, joined by covered corridors and surrounded by a wall, with three central courts and two half-courts in the south wall. It had been developed in many talks among the architects. Valuable suggestions came from Willis Polk and from E. H. Bennett, of Chicago, active in the earlier consultations. The plan finally accepted was the joint work of the entire commission.
Twelve buildings were put under contract, each designed to illustrate an epoch of architecture, ranging from the severity of the early classic to the ornate French renaissance of to-day.
The Architecture
From the start it was realized that, vast as the Exposition was to be, representing styles of architecture almost sensationally different, it must nevertheless suggest that it was all of a piece. The relation of San Francisco to the Orient provided the clue. It was fitting that on the shores of San Francisco Bay, where ships to and from the Orient were continually plying, there should rise an Oriental city. The idea had a special appeal in providing a reason for extensive color effects. The bay, in spite of the California sunshine, somewhat bleak, needed to be helped out with color. The use of color by the Orientals had abundantly justified itself as an integral part of architecture. The Greeks and the Romans had accepted it and applied it even in their statuary. It was, moreover, associated with those Spanish and Mexican buildings characteristic of the early days