per • i • style (per'
e stile') n. Architecture. 1. A series of columns
surrounding
a temple or other structure, or enclosing a court.
2. A
court enclosed by such columns.
- Maybeck's Original Peristyle -
1 9 1 5 -
1 9 6 4
+ + +
Human-scale classical space,
as much as the
monumental Rotunda, was the
highlight
of the Palace of Fine Arts
experience
[Betweem
the semicirclar gallery and the] Corinthian columns runs a broad
promenade
which...receives a
sense of freedom and serenity from the open sky above. The wall
of the gallery
is interrupted only
by the simple entrances at intervals. It is low and intimate in
comparison
with the great
proportions of the other exhibit palaces and its
height is further
broken by a terrace midway, set with growing plants and shrubs.
-
Visitor to the PPIE, 1915
Reflections at Night
Palace of
Fine Arts as built for the Panama Pacific
International
Exposition (1915) and prior to its demolition in 1964.
The facade lighted
here was reconstructed in 1967 with blank walls.
at night
main entrance Now & Then under
construction
north wing
These photos are from a private collection of 1914 unpublished pre-Exposition prints.
The Peristyle was formed by the surviving
Colonnade and Maybeck's classical treatment of the concave side
of the Main Building. This is the building's east façade.
The Peristyle balanced the Rotunda. It made the bodily
experience of the Palace just as important as seeing the
monumental Rotunda. With the more human
scale, horizontal planters, the Peristyle prepared visitors for
the art inside
the main building. (Among the hundreds of galleries, the Main
Building housed one of the earliest
displays of Impressionism in America).
You pick up a blue ribbon, hold it alongside the sample in your hand,
and at a glance you know it matches or it does not. You do the same
with architecture; you examine a historic form and see whether the effect
it produced on your mind matches the feeling you are trying to portray...Bernard Maybeck
