The San Diego World's Fairs and Southwestern Memory, 1880-1940 by Matthew F. Bokovoy

Author:Matthew F. Bokovoy [Bokovoy, Matthew F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 19th Century, United States, 20th Century, State & Local, West (AK; CA; CO; HI; ID; MT; NV; UT; WY), History
ISBN: 9780826336422
Google: wKFZCih_yBcC
Goodreads: 1773633
Publisher: UNM Press
Published: 2005-01-15T13:38:51+00:00

Figure 45. The Federal Building, by Richard Requa and Juan Larrinaga, 1935. Courtesy of SDHS, no. 7918–1.

Figure 46. Looking down the Palisades at the Ford Pavilion, 1935. Courtesy of SDHS, no. UT:3068.

Requa believed the buildings embodied modernism, beauty, and authenticity, “yet remain in historical harmony with the old buildings [of 1915]” designed by Bertram G. Goodhue.15 The Palisades was an evolutionary lesson in “American” architecture, “while modern in character,” the buildings “will all show their direct relationship to the prehistoric architecture of America and will demonstrate that the fundamental forms and ideas of modern architecture can all be found in our prehistoric architecture of America.”16 Requa looked to the antiquity of Meso-America as inspiration for modernist design. For a world’s fair, he claimed “no matter how perfectly one may express an architectural truth, if that expression lacks the dramatic, the unusual and striking effect—it is doomed to failure.”17 Juan Larrinaga, a former Hollywood set designer, created the facade of the Standard Oil Tower with Mayan and modern-style ornamentation that rose skyward like a fancy movie marquee. Requa explained the talents of his protégé, telling Waldo Tupper, “I have in Mr. Larrinaga a co-worker who really knows and feels, and has the rare ability of expressing and adapting to modern uses the remarkable architecture of the prehistoric people in Southern Mexico and Central America.”18 Requa’s exhilarating revival architecture impressed one visitor from Seattle, who enthusiastically told her friend how the “Fair grounds and lighting effects are beautiful,” with “masses of flowers. I would like to stay longer.”19

The Ford Motor Company Pavilion departed slightly from the architectural unity of the Palisades. To the eye of the visitor, the building seemed as a large white automobile wheel laid flat on the earth. The structure was an “immense circular building, fronted by the tower and erected on a promontory which is skirted on three sides by deep canyons.” Designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, the building incorporated the clean lines and white facades of modernism; however, its circular shape resembled the volumes of southwestern architecture. It might have been a kiva above ground. Some locals and visitors believed the pavilion appeared misplaced and argued the building spoiled the romantic Spanish architecture of Balboa Park. One local said with anger it was “a blight on Balboa Park” and warned “the only little corner in the United States which approaches the art of the Old World looks like the Detroit waterfront.”20 Despite the building’s departure from unity on the Palisades and the dismay of some locals, the modernism of the Ford Pavilion did fit Requa’s vision admirably.

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