A HISTORY WORTH SAVING: THE PALACE OF FINE ARTS AND THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY ON A RECONSTRUCTED SITE

Abstract

This thesis examines the legacy of the Palace of Fine Arts in the history of San Francisco. The first section is a social history of the site looking at its origins as a site designed by Bernard Maybeck as one of the many palaces constructed for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Today, the Palace remains the only site from the Exposition standing in its original location. In the over ninety years since the close of the Exposition the Palace has undergone various preservation campaigns. Most notably, the structures of the site were reconstructed in concrete from 1964-1974. The second part of this work explores the Palace?s present situation including discussion of a current large-scale effort to stabilize the structures and landscape of the site. Finally, this thesis addresses the question of how best to provide for the future of the Palace of Fine Arts determining that the major needs of the Palace can be divided into education, interpretation, and physical preservation, and providing recommendations for how to approach the implementation of solutions for each.