BALBOA PARK

Balboa Park is a 1200-acre urban cultural park. A long, broad walkway running through the middle of the park, known as El Prado, contains many of the park’s attractions. The attractions include the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, which includes the world’s largest outdoor pipe organ, the Old Globe Theater, a copy of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, a set of “international cottages,” and the Botanical Building with its accompanying reflecting pool..[more]

Only a few people appear to have looked carefully at the south façade of the California Building in San Diego’s Balboa Park. An article in the San Diego Union, January 1, 1915, declared the California Building was “copied in many essential details from the magnificent cathedral at Oaxaca, Mexico.” Though built for the State of California as its contribution to the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, the California Building did not house state exhibits...[more]

The historic Balboa Park Club Building was first built for the park’s 1915 exposition to house the State of New Mexico’s display. It was later modified and enlarged for the 1935 exposition. It was during this time that sculptor Frederick Schweigardt and artist Belle Baraceneau shaped their remarkable fountain and frieze, which embellish the building’s grand entrance hall......[more]