As the Panama Canal neared completion, US cities competed to host an international fair celebrating the bridging of two worlds. San Francisco, still rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake, managed to win the bid and constructed the fair in record time, opening the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in 1915.
The fair was designed to represent San Francisco as a modern, progressive and elegant city with international connections. The buildings were the largest of the time; sculptors, architects and interior designers were brought in to create cohesive color schemes, statuary and grand plazas.
Inside these buildings, miles of aisles represented manufacturers, technological advances, food products, the fine arts, etc. The fair attempted to cover every facet of human knowledge. Foreign nations and peoples were represented as well—the more familiar in their own buildings, the more exotic packaged as shows in the Zone (an amusement park of sorts). Nearly everything at the fair was for sale.
When the fair ended, 288 days after its opening, everything that could not be sold and shipped off was dynamited, leaving the leased land open for the development of the Marina.
WORKS
Selected Sources, 2010
Flight Paths (Lincoln and Art), 2010