The Tortoise and the Heron

The neoclassical Palace of Fine Art is a faux palace surrounded by an idyllic pond, its reflective surface home to turtles and herons. 
The Romanesque structure was designed by architect Bernard R. Maybeck for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition,  a world’s fair.   The Palace’s domed rotunda, was one of dozens of  pavilions constructed for the nine-month-long expo.
When the grand affair ended, all structures except the Palace were destroyed. San Franciscans couldn’t bear to tear down their glorious tribute to the arts, but since it was built to be temporary—made from plaster, wood, and burlap—the structure slowly crumbled. In the early 1960s, a wealthy philanthropist donated money to save the decaying ruins by recasting them in concrete. Today’s Palace duplicates the original, with a soaring colonnade and bas-relief urns, domed ceiling with allegorical paintings, and Corinthian columns topped with female figures draped in togas, their weeping faces turned away to symbolize “the melancholy of life without art.”