BALBOA PARK; PART 1 in Postcards 4

California Tower.

Although freeways take up 111 acres of the park, the rest is filled with museums and program spaces. In 1915, the park celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal with a number of temporary buildings, the Panama-California Exposition. In 1935, the park hosted another exposition called the Panama Pacific California Pacific Exposition. Each series of buildings were dramatically styled from ersatz baroque Spanish to the Art Deco Ford Building.

During WWII, the park buildings were handed over to the Navy.

These exposition buildings were “declared a National Historic Landmark and National Historic Landmark District in 1977, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The only problem was that they were only temporary. The whole city worried while the government found ways to reconstruct the buildings.

Rebuilt building on the Prado.

Just at that time, there was a series of fires in the park. The Aerospace Museum lost all its many air planes and collections. The Park’s original Old Globe Theater was torched. Wikipedia tells us, “Several crumbling buildings were (also) torn down and replaced with permanent structures which were carefully detailed to maintain the original appearance. The Science and Education Building and the Home Economy Building were demolished to make room for the expansion of two new wings for the Timken Museum of Art.[74] The loss of these two buildings along with the Casa de Balboa, the House of Charm, and the House of Hospitality, resulted in the formation of the independent organization, Committee of One Hundred, to attempt to preserve the exhibition buildings.[74]

Open space on the Prado in front of the main art gallery.

Along the edges of the Prado are lined various entertainments.

A Poet for all.

A sculpture in front of the Mingei Museum.
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