Synopses & Reviews
Published on the occasion of the expo's 75th anniversary, Into the Void Pacific is the first architectural history of the 1939 San Francisco Worldand#8217;s Fair. While fairs of the 1930's turned to the future as a foil to the Great Depression, the Golden Gate International Exposition conjured up geographical conceits to explore the nature of the city's place in what organizers called "Pacific Civilization." Andrew Shanken adopts D.H. Lawrenceand#8217;s suggestive description of California as a way of thinking about the architecture of the Golden Gate International Exposition, using the phrase and#147;void Pacificand#8221; to suggest the isolation and novelty of California and its habit of looking West rather than back over its shoulder to the institutions of the East Coast and Europe. The fair proposed this vision of the Pacific as an antidote to the troubled Atlantic world, then descending into chaos for the second time in a generation. Architects took up the theme and projected the regionalist sensibilities of Northern California onto Asian and Latin American architecture. Their eclectic, referential buildings drew widely on the cultural traditions of ancient Cambodia, China, and Mexico, as well as the International Style, Art Deco, and the Bay Region Tradition. The book explores how buildings supported the cultural and political work of the fair and fashioned a second, parallel world in a moment of economic depression and international turmoil. Yet it is also a tale of architectural compromise, contingency, and symbolism gone awry. With chapters organized around the creation of Treasure Island and the key areas and pavilions of the fair, this study takes a cut through the work of William Wurster, Bernard Maybeck, Timothy Pflueger, and Arthur Brown, Jr., among others. Shanken also looks closely at buildings as buildings, analyzing them in light of local circumstances, regionalist sensibilities, and national and international movements at that crucial moment when modernism and the Beaux-Arts intersected dynamically.
Synopsis
Timed with the centennial of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) of 1915,
Jewel City presents a large and representative selection of artworks from the fair, emphasizing the variety of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and prints that greeted attendees. It is unique in its focus on the works of art that were scattered among the venues of the expositionand#151;the most comprehensive art exhibition ever shown on the West Coast. Notably, the PPIE included the first American presentations of Italian Futurism, Austrian Expressionism, and Hungarian avant-garde painting, and there were also major displays of paintings by prominent Americans, especially those working in the Impressionist style. This lavishly illustrated catalogue features works by masters such as Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Paul Cand#233;zanne, Robert Henri, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka, Umberto Boccioni, and many more. The volume also explores the PPIEand#8217;s distinctive murals program, developments in the art of printmaking, and the legacy of the French Pavilion, which hosted an abundance of works by Auguste Rodin and inspired the founding and architecture of the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco. A rich and fascinating study of a critical moment in American and European art history,
Jewel City is indispensable for understanding both the United Statesand#8217; and Californiaand#8217;s role in the reception of modernism as well as the regionand#8217;s historical place on the international art stage.
Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
About the Author
Andrew Shanken is Associate Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley. His first book 194X, is a cultural history of American architecture, planning, and consumer culture in this formative and strained moment for the architectural profession. He also publishes widely on architecture and memory.
Table of Contents
Foreword (Colin B. Bailey)
Lenders to the Exhibition
Acknowledgements
Introduction: andldquo;A Beautiful Jewel Set in the Turquoise of the Seaandrdquo;and#160; (James A. Ganz)
and#160;
THE SPIRIT OF THE EXPOSITION
Gem of the Golden Age of Worldandrsquo;s Fairs (Laura A. Ackley)
Power of Beauty: Bernard Maybeckandrsquo;s Palace of Fine Arts (Victoria Kastner)
The Classical Ideal in the New Athens (Renandeacute;e Dreyfus)
Harmony and Discord in the Murals (Anthony W. Lee)
and#160;
AMERICAN ART
andldquo;A Pageant of American Artandrdquo;: Constructing Nation and Empire at the Fair (Emma Acker)
Jewels of Light and Color: American Painting in the Palace of Fine Arts (Scott A. Shields)
andldquo;Progressing Along Normal, Wholesome Linesandrdquo;: Modern American Painting (Heidi Applegate)
and#160;
PRINTMAKING AND PHOTOGRAPHYand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Prints at the Exposition (Colleen Terry)
Gallery 34: Contemporary Color Prints (Karin Breuer)
Exposing Photography at the Fair (James A. Ganz)
and#160;
THE FRENCH PAVILION AND THE ANNEX
The French Pavilion (Martin Chapman)
French Paintings at the Exposition: A Triumph of Diplomacy (Melissa E. Buron)
A Debut of Hungarian Art in America (Gergely Barki)
and#160;
Ground Plan and Floor Plans
Chronology
Catalogue of the Exhibition
Selected Bibliography
Indexand#160;