Henry Bacon, soon to design the Lincoln Memorial, made the west court a place of calm. Todd found it 'as wholly lacking in excitement as that of any classic temple,' noting it was 'much haunted by honeymoon couples' and that people taking shortcuts through it slowed down. It was an octagon 340 ft across, about the diameter of the Court of Abundance but narrowed by its corner niches, so it felt smaller and more intimate. Condensed Facts said Hadrian's Villa inspired it.
At the south end a great open, coffered half-dome formed an orchestral niche, crowned by Albert Jaegers' 'Harvest.' In each of four deep corner recesses, behind double ranks of smooth unfluted columns, a simple cascade poured over basins at descending levels, under one of Furio Piccirilli's groups of the Seasons. A low round pool in the center reflected it all. Todd liked the columns' restraint: 'untroubled by reeding or fluting or other ornamental struggles.' Maize hung from their capitals, and on the north pylons Jaegers' garlanded bulls were led to festival by youths and maidens.
Verses from Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' ran over the east arches, and lines by the California poet George Sterling faced them. This was the first of the courts to be built and planted, with gray-green eucalyptus 50 ft tall, old olive trees and pittosporum giving it its sober tone. The opening-day chorus was programmed to sing here, and at night the court kept its 'wholesome bucolic calm,' the pool reflecting the rosy niche or the aurora thrown up by the Scintillator.
North of it ran the Court of Ceres, which Todd thought had perhaps the finest colonnades of the fair, to the Esplanade. West of it, through the Sunset Court, opened the view of the Palace of Fine Arts, and east of it the Venetian Court led to the Court of the Universe.
It was the sort of place in which it seemed always to be a fine day.
Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 2 (1921), ch. LVII
At a glance
- Cost: $208,730 (Todd vol. 2, ch. LXII).
- First court contract filed: November 5, 1913 (Todd vol. 2, ch. IV); builders Strehlow, Freese & Petersen.
- Sculptures for it were the first assigned, at a January 1913 meeting in Karl Bitter's New York studio, because Bacon's plans were finished first (Official Guide; Todd vol. 1).
- Piccirilli's four groups had 12 adult figures, 14 counting the babies (Todd vol. 2).
- Bancroft's ten panels: Man Receiving Instruction in Nature's Laws; Art Crowned by Time; Spring; Seedtime; Summer; Fruition; Autumn; Harvest; Winter; Festivity (Todd vol. 2).
- The Official Guide's music program scheduled the Exposition Chorus of 250 voices to sing 'The Heavens Are Telling' and the official hymn here on opening day.
Afterward
Demolished in 1916 (Todd vol. 5). The site is now residential Marina District.
The site today
Present-day photographs and video of this spot are being made for the film. You can stand there yourself: it is a stop on the self-guided walk.
On the walk: S16 Court of the Four Seasons · Beach and Divisadero
Beach St at Divisadero (about here)
Have a photo of this spot? Email it to hello@288days.com with code S16 and up to 50 characters of credit. It appears here and in the film.
Where it stood
Court of the Four Seasons stood at about 37.80308 N, 122.44524 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →
Sources
- Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 2, ch. LVII, chs. LXI–LXIII, ch. IV
- Official Guide of the PPIE (1915), Exposition Sculpture; Music
- Condensed Facts concerning the PPIE (1915), The Court of the Four Seasons
- Barry, The City of Domes (1915), chs. VII–VIII