The North Gardens (Marina Green) and Yacht Harbor remained, a gift of the Exposition, along with the Column of Progress with its "Adventurous Bowman" at the end of Scott Street until, in the 1920s, it succumbed to automobile collisions and was pulled down.
The South Gardens were scraped clean of plantings, fountains, and sculpture, and small buildings were moved to the waterfront and barged throughout the Bay Area. Speculative forces proved far stronger than the dream, however, and the arches and towers were brought down in clouds of colored plaster, revealing in their fall the underlying lath framework. Louis Christian Mullgardt told the Commonwealth Club that "when the Exposition buildings are torn down, then we will have destroyed one of the greatest architectural units which has ever been created in the history of the world."(32) The influential club, like many others, passed a resolution pleading for the preservation of as much of the fair as possible. Architect Willis Polk, in particular, lobbied heavily for the preservation of the Palace of Fine Arts, Palace of Horticulture, South and North Gardens, and the Avenue of Palms. The Panama Pacific International Exposition proved so popular (and profitable) that long before its closing proposals were being made to save all or part of it. From dreams of preserving the fair’s structures as an architectural unit, to the belief that the Fair would forever change the mechanisms of city planning, he examines the reasons for its popularity and its symbolism as the last of the great Beaux-Arts Fairs, and discusses the work of the few architects and projects that were deeply affected by its legacy. Gray Brechin discusses the legacies of the Panama Pacific International Exposition (1915-1916) at the time of its destruction. In 2011, the site of so many tearful farewells was reopened as museum that tells the story of those separated by the wall.One of four Italian Towers comes crashing down at the end of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, 1916. The Palace of Tears is set in a former border-crossing station at Friedrichstrasse, where from 1962 to 1989, hundreds of thousands of East Germans said goodbye to loved ones visiting from the West. Several other museums offer visitors a glimpse of life in divided Berlin.
On the opposite corner, the new Black Box exhibit at Checkpoint Charlie is an extension of the museum, with special attention given to explaining the events that led to the construction of the wall and, eventually, its destruction.
The museum, which opened in 1962, continues to tell the story of the wall, the Cold War and the few brave people who managed to cross from East to West in tunnels, hidden in cars, and even in hot-air balloons. It may be a tourist trap, but the adjacent Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie is a worthwhile, if crowded, place to learn more about the infamous border station, once the site of American and Soviet standoffs. (Katie Hammel)Īcross the street from the Panometer, the most famous border crossing in Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie, is now packed with tourists who happily pose for photos with the "soldiers" stationed there. Metal poles stand at the Berlin Wall Memorial in place of the infamous barrier.
0 kommentar(er)
