A Stroll through history
Then vs. now in Balboa Park
By Courtney Hill
By Courtney Hill
Close your eyes and picture Balboa Park, created for the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition. If you see Spanish Fantasy styled architecture with the ornate castings mixed with 15th century details, street vendors, and performers, you’re probably from San Diego. Or, at the very least, have been there a couple times while visiting.
I myself have had many different experiences at Balboa Park, as it has become one of my favorite places to be. I love knowing the history behind places I'm at, which is precisely why I took a tour around the park. My tour guide made the telling of the story even more interesting by including some humor in it. Balboa Park was created in 1868. It was originally called the San Diego Park, or City Park by some. In 1908 Aubrey Davidson had the idea to turn the park into something different, where San Diego could host the World’s Fair to get the city on the map. The event would also be held to celebrate the Panama Canal, which allowed people to cross over into the US. She put San Diego on the table to be a site for the World’s Fair––the directors of the event chose based off of which place has the most to offer––and it’s because of her and the 1915 fair that our population grew. It started out as small as 37,578 (being the smallest population to host a World’s Fair) and from there, the population grew dramatically, to our current population of 1.356 million. This turned out to be an extremely successful plan, as we then hosted another spot in the 1935 World’s Fair. But in 1978, after journeys through prosperity, remodeling, and protests, Balboa Park was ravaged by fires, and many historic buildings and artifacts were lost. One fire was on February 22, the Air and Space Museum (then known as the Aerospace Museum) collection was destroyed when the electrical building on the Prado burned down. Two weeks later, the famous Old Globe Theatre (originally built in 1935) also burned down. Thankfully, through the support of private donors and the community, all of the buildings were later restored. The Air and Space Museum was moved into the recently renovated Ford building, and the Old Globe was used as a temporary outside building to accommodate its visitors for the summer season. This temporary solution was then upgraded and turned into a permanent place that we all know today, thanks to a man named Lowell Davis. He helped with the remodeling after the fires, and also decided that the standing buildings would become permanent solutions. The Balboa Park we see today reflects the public’s desire for change, what the architects had in mind, and the modern feel which the community added while rebuilding. We could only touch on a small portion of Balboa Park’s extensive history, as our tour was limited on time. However, that didn't stop our tour guide from cramming as much information into our skulls as he could. We walked around the park to get a visual of what he was telling us. The
World’s Fair is just a large exhibition of whatever the location so
chooses to exhibit. These events tend to vary in their styles, and held
all over the world. We learned there are normally three main types of
conventions: universal, international and specialized (‘Specialized’ is
similar to ‘International’ in that they have the same criteria.).
Universal, now known as ‘Registered,’ is the biggest category of the
events. Participants generally create their own site created for that
purpose, and the most expensive of the three. Internationals are now
called ‘Recognized Exposition,’ These are your typical, well-known
street conventions which are free of rent, charges, taxes, and other
expenses. They usually last from three weeks to six months. We were also
informed that Balboa Park has offered to host several of these, some of
which will be coming up next year, in 2015.
An interesting thing which most people wouldn’t have guessed, said the guide, was that the name Balboa was not agreed upon. The original name of the park was the ‘San Diego Park.’ However, everyone agreed that, if we were to host the World’s Fair, it should be at a nicely named location. There were several name suggestions out there, including a play on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, being ‘Silver Gate’. “A complete joke,” he said. “Everyone loved it, and it nearly became official... somehow.” When someone suggested the name Balboa, everyone quickly shot it down. Balboa was the name of the Spanish-born Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who was the first European who discovered the Pacific Ocean after crossing Panama. The real protest for this was simply that the man was not the most honorable. It is said that he was guilty of many crimes, including homicide. So no one wanted to name a soon-to-be famous place in their city after someone like that. Despite the words of the people saying otherwise, the park commissioners decided on Balboa. Since the people knew they couldn’t change it, they were happy enough if they were to ignore a few of the crimes he did, focusing on just what they were celebrating, The architecture is what really makes it famous, said our guide. It was centered around the idea called ‘Spanish Fantasy,’ originating from Spain, and this is clearly seen around the park. The architect who designed Balboa Park had visited places all over the world to get architecturally inspired, and came back with three main ideas: Spanish Fantasy, Mission Colonial, and Navajo. However, there were a few exceptions of this. Take the Botanical Gardens museum, for example. That building was actually inspired by a Persian Palace, and was originally in a ‘T’ shape. However, the tail end of the ‘T’ is now part of the zoo. It is now in a rectangle, made beautifully with an open ceiling, allowing the plants to get natural sunlight. The museum could also be counted as being somewhat interactive: there are a few plants you can smell and rub your fingers on, in order to get a better idea of their scent and feel. “But don't do this with all of them, or else you'll get into big trouble,” my tour guide said, “I'd know”. I'd be lying if I said no one looked at him with a curious eye as to what he did to get in trouble in the museum, but he decided not to press the subject, and went along with the tour as if no one got suspicious. Similarly to the Botanical Garden, we've seen how many other buildings have also been changed and/or removed from the park. One example of this would be the San Diego Zoo. Once a small amusement park called ‘Wonderland,’ it was changed to a zoo for the 1915 World’s Fair. It was supposed to go back to its original state in 1917, but it decided to remain a zoo with the leftover animals, since the very idea of Wonderland had gone out of business from being away for so long. Everyone thought that a zoo would be more interesting at the fair than a small amusement park, so the planners of the event got animals shipped over, and they were there to stay. Since the founders of it were also very pleased with it, they allowed it to expand to what we see now. Another example is of the Harvester building, which is now the snake building in the San Diego Zoo; the Zoro Gardens were once in the zoo, but are now located in Balboa Park; the Ford museum is now the Air and Space museum; Spanish Canyon was originally meant to be a lake for all types of public use; and the education building, photography buildings and old globe were torn down, and are now known as the Spanish Gardens. This shows how our culture strives to keep up with modernization, yet still loves to preserve its history. Balboa Park turned out to be a perfect mix of the two, pleasing almost everybody.
Something that most people probably didn’t know was that the buildings that were built for the 1915 World’s Fair were not meant to last any more than five years, but the people had instead decided that they should keep the park as it was. The guide had said that since the buildings were only meant to be temporary, not much thought was put into the architectural security of them. Hence why some museums, such as the Botanical museum, have to be rebuilt or updated once every six years. Because of the temporary design, they tried to keep it spacious for a lot of people, but also easy for the planned take-down. However, keeping old designs while entering a new era is always a challenge, which is why the group the Committee of One Hundred, lead by Bea Evenson, was created in 1967: to preserve the original architecture, gardens, and public spaces of the park. Although they didn’t always win their battles against those attempting to modernize the park, they still worked hard to satisfy their desires for the park, nonetheless. They wanted to keep it as it was, preserving everything for future generations. But the newer architects wanted to update it, keeping it with the newer styles. An example would be of the Timken Art Museum––the Committee of One Hundred did not like that the Timkens were making an entirely new building unlike the rest of the architecture around it. But since they saw that they could not get rid of the building (as with many other new ones) they designed the arched hallways and plants in an attempt to ‘hide’ the unfitting new architecture, and have it blend in with what they were trying to preserve. As the tour ended not too far from our starting point of the History Center, I couldn't help but look around at one of my favorite places in a new way. I had always known that Balboa Park had so much history crammed into it, but hearing of all of this shocked me. Now knowing more history of Balboa Park, I can appreciate it even more when I go there. Maybe, just maybe, you will too when you visit it again. Let the history surrounding you embrace you like a warm blanket when it’s cold. Because understanding what you're surrounded by, especially when you love and have connections with the place, is one of the most amazing things in the world. |