Category: Arts & Letters

While from a distance Fonthill Castle does much to evoke its European counterparts—with its imposing, bulky countenance, its heavenward towers and spires, its parapets and chimneys—inside, and at its heart, it’s an altogether different creature. If the castles of yore across the Atlantic were meant to protect and deter, this is every bit the opposite: a castlemeant to nurture, inspire, and preserve.

This massive, medieval-like structure, even though cast in cold concrete, is pulsing with warmth, color, and vitality on its inside. Each of its utterly unique 44 rooms was meant to be both a home for its creator as well as a living museum of sorts. On display is its owner’s staggering collection of tileware and prints gathered over a lifetime of expeditions and research.

Fonthill was the brainchild—and life’s dream—of Henry Chapman Mercer, a Doylsetown, Pennsylvania, native who began planning its construction in 1908 at the age of 51.

Part Renaissance man, part Indiana Jones, Mercer had by then transformed a childhood love of collecting into a career as an archaeologist (self-taught, it should be noted) that culminated with a distinguished post as curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Mercer fell in love with the human past and its physical legacy over the course of multiple trips and expeditions, beginning first with a “Grand Tour” (as they were then called) following his graduation from Harvard in 1879. Mercer’s travels included much of Europe, the Yucatan, and even the Middle East—when not excavating prehistoric sites along the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Tennessee.

One encounter played a formative role in Fonthill’s conception. This was Mercer’s discovery of the nearly lost craft of pottery making among Pennsylvanian Germans. The colorful, playful nature of their ceramic ware struck a chord with the budding scholar. His determination to learn the elusive craft would eventually take him all the way to Germany’s Black Forest.

overwhelmingly at Fonthill. Whatever room you enter, nearly every swathe of wall, nook of floor, and vault of ceiling is adorned with custom tilework—the vast majority of it Mercer’s own creation.

He was so enamored with the old world craft that after his travels, he established his own pottery kiln, adjacent to Fonthill, where he fashioned many a design of his own. Some were reproductions of exquisite European designs he had seen in cloisters or fabled estates. Others were purely the product of his own imagination. Mercer’s tile creations bespeak his own colorful personality—reflecting a vast range of themes and interests, if not moods, from the playful to the sublime.

Some installments depict Biblical scenes, while others are taken from the pages of Charles Dickens. Chinese, Persian, Spanish, and Dutch tilework feature throughout.

The Columbus Room, the crowing jewel of Fonthill’s many rooms, is one charming example. It documents the explorer’s life and spirit of adventure, adoringly, in tiles of every imaginable hue. The room positively radiates with appreciation for a historical figure whose staggering achievements rightly deserve remembrance.

Tellingly, Mercer dedicated the room to the aunt who had enabled the building of Fonthill with her generous bequest to him. Mercer’s own sense of gratitude for the forces in his own life is on full display elsewhere, too. In the ceiling of one hallway, Mercer inscribed the names of all those who designed, built, and set the tiles.

One also sees Mercer’s faith woven into the very core of the building. Ascending the steps to the main entrance of the building, colorful tiles proclaim: “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

So adored were Mercer’s tiles that his kiln regularly shipped his designs throughout not only the United States but the world. His works became a major force in the American Arts and Crafts movement, and were, for all their influences, distinctly American. Fittingly, Mercer dubbed Fonthill itself “a castle for the New World.”

But perhaps most remarkable of all is the story of Mercer’s own derring-do. Incredibly, it was Mercer himself who designed the entire castle—down to every last tread of its 32 winding stairwells. This was a man with no formal architectural training, and he had not a single engineer on his team, never mind the assistance of modern CAD software!

Mercer eschewed the possibility of enlisting architects on his team, not for frugality’s sake, as one might imagine, but so that, it seemed, their self-limiting frameworks wouldn’t hem in his expansive imagination. He wanted to build in ways nobody had before, and darned be the expert who was going to tell him what was and wasn’t possible. (Indeed, one concrete expert who caught wind of Mercer’s ambitious plans laughed at the idea—until, that was, he saw it taking shape and experienced “a change in his attitude,” as Mercer generously put it.) At the time, nobody could be sure if the castle would even stand, let alone fulfill Mercer’s own exceptionally innovative conceptions.

And innovate, he did. To get his dear tilework embedded solidly enough into the ceilings, Mercer had to invent a new form of temporary interior scaffolding, involving hundreds of pounds of sand filling, such that concrete could be poured over (and thus behind and above) the tile pieces, forming vaults. To everyone’s surprise, Mercer’s ceilings were a resounding success.

Equally exceptional was the fact that Mercer assembled a crew of unskilled day laborers—just 8 to 12 men small—to execute all aspects of construction, under Mercer’s watchful eye. With no big ideas of their own, and an unquestioning draft horse named Lucy to hoist cement bags up all those stories, Mercer’s dutiful crew would do little to curb his aspirations.

Mercer’s masterpiece is thus, at its heart, quintessentially American in its boldness of vision, its innovative spirit, and its unfailing individuality. “I haven’t any precedent for it,” Mercer told a reporter in 1908 as construction commenced. “I am simply following out my own ideas.”

Mercer’s castle is thus a triumph of the spirit as much as one of engineering, a reflection of a moment in American history when one could dream bigger than anyone had, without the burden of endless regulations nipping at one’s heels, dampening one’s enthusiasms for the possible.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

“The magic garden has taken the place of the desert. He who saw the land three years ago and sees it again today, would think that some modern Aladdin had come this way and rubbed his lamp, or that Merlin had waved his magic wand and caused the Dream City to spring up.”
—National Magazine, 1915

Beginning with London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, international expositions showcased the power and cultural sophistication of the world’s leading cities. Immensely ambitious civic and landscape designs almost inexplicably transformed cities like Chicago around the end of the 19th century. Cities temporarily played host to these grandiose amusement parks and museum complexes with the might and prowess of classical antiquity. Strangely, these vast undertakings were by and large impermanent creations—strenuous efforts to be marveled at, then destroyed. In the early 1910s, California incredibly built two expositions that were underway at the same time only hundreds of miles apart.

By far the larger of the two events, San Francisco was chosen as California’s official “international” exposition of 1915. To the south, San Diego created an exposition that was much more modest, yet was widely recognized as more original—authentic and cohesive in its vision, meaning, and execution. Celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal, San Diego held its exposition in honor of being America’s first port-of-call on new shipping routes that cut through Panama before heading north along the Pacific coast. In keeping with the Panama theme, the name Balboa Park was chosen in honor of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the first European to see the Pacific while exploring Panama.

Departing from the bulky, old-world designs of other expositions, San Diego opted for an innovative Spanish Colonial design that fit California’s rich history and scenery. The result was a beautiful “garden fair” that delighted visitors with its relevantly romantic theme, horticultural abundance, and ornamentally eccentric architecture. Paired with its impressive harbor and growing metropolis, the 1915 exposition paved the way for San Diego to become a powerful economic, cultural, and military center in the 20th century.

Design and Architecture of the Exposition

Bertram Goodhue, chief architect of the exposition, chose Spanish Colonial Revival architecture as the design theme for the first time in American exposition history. It is a delightfully ornate style that can still be seen on some of the permanent structures in Balboa Park. Goodhue intuitively felt that Greek architectural styles would not have correlated with the San Diego region, for it was the Spanish Empire that had a history of colonizing missions up and down California’s Pacific coast. Furthermore, San Diego was the first of these missions in 1769. Unlike San Francisco’s International Exposition, San Diego planned on using a smaller area, about which Goodhue wrote, “Within these confines was built a city-in-miniature wherein everything that met the eye and ear of the visitor were meant to recall to mind the glamour and mystery and poetry of the old Spanish days.”

The architecture of San Diego’s exposition was based more on the Baroque Period in Europe than the modest designs of the California missions. The 1915 issue of “The Architectural Record” detailed the architectural designs of the exposition as “the spirit of the Renaissance gone mad. It is a riot of motives, all related but apparently in a sort of architecturally crazy quilt. Columns and pilasters are diverted in a hundred different ways between base and capital, yet retain their character. Broken pediments, curves, twists, flutes, scallops; theoretically a sort of architectural buffoonery, yet actually a style of strange delight.”

Goodhue had experience with Spanish Colonial architecture after having studied it extensively in Mexico. His architecture employed a combination of styles known as Churrigueresque and Plateresque: elaborate sculptural and architectural ornamentation that contrasts against a plain surface. The buildings are dressed up with the artistic sculptural details of vines, fruit, figures, and heraldry. The permanent structures of the exposition boldly stand on the landscape with their unique character, thoughtful design, and expert artisanship. Buildings were naturally accentuated by horticultural elements of blooming vines, flowers, and trees standing against the more simplified architectural facades, softening corners and enlivening the simpler aspects of the buildings with the organic flowing forms of nature. The result was a “dream city” that captured the hearts and minds of visitors and San Diegans alike.

The Structures Built To Survive

Unlike the larger international expositions held in Chicago and San Francisco, San Diego didn’t want to commit to such a monumental undertaking only to have it mostly disappear shortly after. Much of the work undertaken in Balboa Park was intended to be permanent, from streets such as El Prado with its Cabrillo Bridge, to structures like the California Building and the Botanical Building. Nevertheless, a great many structures were not built to last and either required rehabilitation or were destroyed for a variety of reasons in the years that followed. The following are structures that remain from the exposition or were built shortly after.

California Building

Perhaps the most iconic structure in Balboa Park, the California Building features the park’s iconic 208-foot-tall tower and colorfully tiled dome. It is perched on top of the park’s central mesa next to a valley, which the Cabrillo Bridge crosses over. The California Building, home to the Museum of Us (formerly the Museum of Man), was designed by Goodhue’s firm. Inspired by ornate churches in Mexico, the California Building is included in the National Register of Historic Places, and the Museum of Us still houses artifacts that were displayed during the exposition’s “The Story of Man Through the Ages” exhibit. The museum’s front entrance, windows, tower, and dome are all intricately detailed examples of this playfully decorative style of architecture. Large, weaving sculptural designs frame the museum’s front entrance and feature figures of missionaries, explorers, and kings—all part of the historic and thematic references to the building’s Spanish influences.

Cabrillo Bridge

The famed western entrance to Balboa Park is across the park’s massive, aqueduct-style Cabrillo Bridge. Made up of 4,050 tons of steel and 7,700 cubic yards of concrete, the quarter-mile-long, seven-arched bridge stands 120 feet over the canyon below. At the time of the exposition, the canyon peacefully featured a man-made lagoon, which beautifully reflected the bridge’s tall arches. Only three decades later, the lagoon was drained, making way for a four-lane highway that was built through the park’s canyon to help accommodate San Diego’s increased traffic demands. In the 1960s, an effort to double the freeway’s width to eight lanes was rejected by opponents, who stated, “We ask you not to sacrifice any more of the space, the clean air, or the greenery of Balboa Park to expediency.”

Botanical Building

One of Balboa Park’s most popular and highly photographed scenes is the Botanical Building. Sitting luxuriously in front of the Lily Pond and reflecting pool, the building appears to be woven with narrow strips of wood called lath. The 250-foot-long and 75-foot-wide building is one of the largest lath structures in the world. Designed by architect Carleton M. Winslow and built for the 1915 exposition, this unique, open-air structure houses over 2,100 permanent plants, including ferns, orchids, cycads, and palms. The name “garden exposition” was given, in part, for its assortment of tropical and semi-tropical plants found in the Botanical Building and throughout the park. In front of the building, the Lily Pond is also a horticultural feat that has been home to 24 varieties of water lilies and five varieties of lotus.

Spreckels Organ Pavilion

Built in 1914, the Spreckels Organ Pavilion of Balboa Park houses the world’s largest outdoor organ. John Spreckels, prominent San Diego businessman of old, and his brother Adolph gifted the pavilion to the city so that the people and visitors of San Diego could enjoy free outdoor music in Balboa Park. In addition to musical performances, the pavilion has historically received speakers such as former president Teddy Roosevelt, as well as other noteworthy figures including Albert Einstein. Today, the pavilion continues to be used as a civic gathering place, and free organ concerts are provided to the public every Sunday afternoon.

San Diego Museum of Art

The San Diego Museum of Art was built after the exposition in 1924. It took the place of the incredible temporary structure, the Sacramento Valley Building, in its prominent location at the end of the Plaza de Panama. As permanent as it appears in photographs and postcards, the Sacramento Valley Building was nonetheless demolished in 1924. Architect William Templeton Johnston continued in the exposition’s Spanish Colonial architectural style by employing Plateresque models from 16th-century Spanish Renaissance cathedrals in Spain. Life-sized sculptures of Spanish master painters, such as Diego Velázquez, were included in the front ornamental façade sculpted by Chris Mueller, who had also worked on the 1915 exposition. The museum opened its doors in February 1926 and was gifted to the city of San Diego thanks to the generous donations of Appleton S. Bridges and other prominent San Diego residents.

San Diego’s Rise to Prominence

In “The American Review of Reviews,” Albert Shaw wrote: “For a city of some 70,000 people, San Diego has done one of the biggest and most wonderful things in the history of American cities. Her Exposition would be a distinct achievement for a world-metropolis.”

The 1915–16 Panama–California Exposition marked a monumental turning point in San Diego’s development. The city’s population doubled from 1909 to 1915 between the planning and the opening of the exposition while also attracting millions of tourists during its run. As part of the exhibition, U.S. Marines encamped for a year on exposition grounds. This led to the development of a greater military presence in San Diego, along with the creation of shipbuilding industries near San Diego’s harbor.

The Spanish Colonial style of the exposition influenced the course of architecture throughout California, and semi-tropical horticulture in the park’s landscape design further inspired people to plant more non-native plants in their yards and communities. The exposition demonstrated what a city could do to propel itself onto the world stage and beautify its public spaces. Balboa Park is a lasting testament to its builder’s commitment to vision, artistry, and hard work.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Truesdale Marshall, in Henry Blake Fuller’s 1895 novel, “With the Procession,” had this to say about Chicago: A “hideous monster, a piteous, floundering monster too. It almost called for tears. Nowhere a more tireless activity, yet nowhere a result so pitifully grotesque, gruesome, appalling.” This was the assessment of the great city that had risen so rapidly in the plains of America’s Midwest. The young nation had barely survived its civil war just decades before. Chicago was still recovering from its great fire. Railroads rushed to cross and crisscross the fruited plain, building quickly. There was no time for building beautiful arched bridges. Wooden trestles were thrown up in a matter of weeks. Track was measured in miles laid per day. “Hell on Wheels” was the order of the day. Midwestern cities were ugly, smelly, and chaotic.

But then, in the summer of 1893, a gleaming city appeared on the shores of Lake Michigan, something that didn’t seem to belong to this boisterous time. It only stood for a brief season, but it would change the course of a nation’s development. Massive Classical buildings rose majestically above a series of great lagoons. Beauty rose from the chaos of unbridled growth as a swamp along the shore of Lake Michigan became the site of the World’s Columbian Exposition—the Chicago World’s Fair.

It was inspired by the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris and was conceived to honor the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America. Chicago had beat out established cities like New York and now set to work to build a great international fair in the heartland of America. Daniel Hudson Burnham, of Burnham and Root, was selected as Director of Works for the fair. He was an accomplished architect and urban planner and a strong advocate of the Beaux-Arts movement. He would go on to design the magnificent Union Station of Washington, D.C. Now, he had a fair to create.

Enlisting some of the finest minds in architecture, Burnham struggled to create a unique site for his fair. Frederick Law Olmsted, the great landscape designer, envisioned a series of lagoons and canals, creating a modern-day Venice. The signature building of the fair, the Administration Building, was awarded to Richard Morris Hunt, a fine Beaux-Arts architect who had designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. Hunt had done numerous commissions for the Vanderbilt family, including working with Frederick Law Olmsted to create Biltmore Estate, the largest private home in America.

Hunt’s rendered elevation for the Administration Building is a beautiful watercolor in the finest Beaux-Arts manner, rich in layers of Classical detail. Burnham, Hunt, and Olmsted clearly laid forth a vision for something timeless, a vision of what a city should be, but time was of the essence. An entire city would have to be built in less than two years. It would already open a year late for the 400th anniversary celebration. It was also temporary. The fair would only operate for six months and then be torn down, so the builders did not use carved stone at all. Instead, they built an enormous stage set! The large buildings of the Court of Honor were hastily built on steel and wood frameworks that were covered with lath and a fibrous plaster-cement mixture called “staff.” Details were molded out of plaster.

Each building would need to be painted to protect it from the elements. Brushing would take too much time, so the builders developed an efficient method of spray-painting everything white. The result was a series of huge buildings that were bright in the summer sun. The press dubbed it the “White City.” Black-and-white photographs of the fair add to this impression. Though George Westinghouse’s electric illumination of the fair included colored lights, the impression guests received by day, and that of newspaper readers, was monochromatic. The technology that would propel America into the 20th century was proudly displayed on a Neoclassical stage. Over 27 million visitors would come to the fair.

There were some who wished that the fair’s Classical architecture could be preserved, but that was not possible. The staff-covered buildings were simply not durable enough. They were also firetraps. During the fair, the innovative Cold Storage Building had burned to the ground, claiming 17 lives. The Peristyle, a massive colonnade facing Lake Michigan, burned down right after the fair, killing two more people. Only the Palace of Fine Arts, built more substantially to meet insurance requirements for the artwork displayed there, would survive. Today, it houses the Field Museum, but it has been substantially rebuilt. The World Congress Building, built just outside the fairgrounds, remains today and houses the Art Institute of Chicago. It was built for the fair but was not actually an exhibition building. The Pabst (beer) Pavilion, the Pavilion of Norway, and a few state pavilions were moved elsewhere.

The Beaux-Arts Classicism the fair inspired would endure, however, as a series of international expositions continuing into the early 20th century and built in the same theme. San Francisco, Atlanta, Nashville, Omaha, Buffalo, Charleston, St. Louis, Portland, Seattle, and even little Jamestown, Virginia, would host fairs. The resurgence of Classicism would inspire many important civic buildings and institutions, ushering in a new wave of American architecture. But already, there was a disagreement over the future of America’s public architecture. Louis Sullivan’s Transportation Building at the 1893 fair was a substantial departure from Classical forms. Sullivan and his apprentice, Frank Lloyd Wright, would seek to create a distinctive American architecture apart from European Classical forms. Wright’s work would find inspiration in the Chicago fair’s Japanese Pavilion.

Daniel Burnham went on to lay out new urban planning for Chicago and would go on to serve with Charles McKim (of McKim, Mead, and White), Fredrick Law Olmsted, and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in creating the 1901 McMillan Plan to redesign the monumental core of Washington, D.C. The plan would define the National Mall we know today, a great avenue and green-space flanked by classical museums. In smaller cities and towns across the nation, Neoclassical courthouses and banks would also rise to underscore a new sense of national identity.

Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Virginia, with his wife, Pam. He teaches studio art (with a good deal of art history thrown in) to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Coop. Kirchman is an avid hiker and loves exploring the hidden wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains.