How the architecture of the Panama-California Exposition,
which influenced the appearance of all California, flowed from designs
of famed buildings in historic Spain, Mexico and Italy

	The California Tower, a landmark of San Diego, at top left, owes its origin to the praying towers of the Arab world, and its ornamentation to the art of the Moors and the Spanish Renaissance. It has been likened to the tower of the Cathedral of Cordova in southern Spain, which once was a Moorish mosque [shown middle]. Cordova was the first Roman colony in Spain and later under the Moors became one of the great capitals of the Mohammedan world. In Seville, not far away, is the Giralda, [shown bottom]. The original Moorish edifice was completed in 1176 and then when Spain was reconquered by the Christians the ornate belfry was superimposed on it. Seville is the heart of Andalusia from where came so many of the early Spanish settlers of California.