This is due to in part to a lack of maintenance funding for the past thirty years, but it is also due the fact that the Palace is only two thirds complete.

As a building in a world's fair designed to last one year - until the end of 1915 - the orginal Palace was built of light wood framing, chicken wire and plaster.  San Francisco loved the Palace and would not let it be torn down like all the other Fair buildings (see 'PPIE' photo in Proposal). But by 1964 affection could not save a 'Palace' wrecked by fifty years of winter rains and summer heat. Bulldozers did the rest of the work. The Palace was 95% demolished.

When the State and philanthropist Walter Johnson paid for the 1964 reconstruction in reinforced concrete of the Palace they lacked almost one third of the funds necessary to complete the project. Determined to get the Palace back, they proceeded to build what they could. Maybeck's stately classical lining on the Main Building, that was not affordable, was replaced with blank walls.  They left the west side of the Peristyle for future generations to complete.

These three graphics from Ruth Newhall's "San Fancisco's Enchanted Palace" tell the story of what buildings were part of the original Palace, what was reconstructed in the 1960's and 1970's, and, most importantly, they tell the story of what was omitted.