Botanical Building - San Diego, CA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 32° 43.943 W 117° 08.956
11S E 486014 N 3621629
The Botanical Building is a lath-covered structure located in Balboa Park in San Diego California and contains a collection of tropical and semi-tropical plants and was built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition.
Waymark Code: WMNHC5
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 03/17/2015
Views: 5
This photo (gelatin silver print) by Francis Brugliere was taken in 1915 when the building was new and art of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. It is displayed in the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts.
Today, the building still stands and serves as a botanical building.
The San Diego Historical Center (
visit link) adds:
"The building had three names. Its unofficial name, which was soon discarded, was Horticultural Building, its official name was Botanical Building, and its popular name was Lath Palace. Its rounded forms are what critics call soft and feminine. When opened in 1915, a series of white stucco arches ran the full length of the front, suggesting a lower story. Five arches, forming an entrance, projected forward in the middle. Two of these arches, on left and right sides, were topped by octagonal Persian-style domes. These served as entrances while intervening arches were enclosed by glass panes separated into panels by horizontal and vertical sash The glass panes were later replaced by redwood dowels that let in light while offering seclusion in the manner of harems in Moslem countries.17 This departure from original specifications probably occurred during a sweeping renovation in 1957-59. Aesthetic loss was negligible.18
The upper central section is marked off from the barrel vaults of side wings by a large arch enclosing straight vertical laths which is surmounted by a dome on which stands a small open cupola that provides a unifying grace note. There is a congruity of form and scale between center dome and side vaults. Steel trusses in vaults and dome support 70,000 feet of redwood lath, which is curved to conform to the shape of the building. The color of the redwood was as the name indicates.
In 1915 the interior held a number of palms, bamboos, banana trees, and Aralia elegantissima and Aralia chabrierii that Superintendent of Landscaping Paul Thiene had prepared for transplanting from park nurseries beginning in 1912. The majority of plants grew from subsoil and were not potted. Linnets, thrushes and canaries inhabited bird cages secreted among the larger plants. The plants were watered by hand or by overhead pipes equipped with spray nozzles. A problem, not evident in 1915, was the rapid growth of bamboo, Ficus pandurata and Aracuaria bidwillii under the vaults and a single Cocos plumosa palm under the dome. These towering plants grew through overhead laths. As a result, beginning in 1917, they were removed or cut down.19"