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

In Palma de Majorca, the capital of the Spanish Balearic Islands, where some of the olive trees are said to be a thousand years old, is a building known as the Casa Consistorial, or town hall, shown below. It is distinguished by the extraordinary projection of its roof, which extends nine feet and is supported by carved buttresses and caryatids whose colors are dimmed by time. The carved upper figures of women, dimmed by age and barely visible from in front, appear to droop with their timeless burden of weight. The concept of this building was carried to San Diego, in the creation of the richly carved frieze of one of the exposition's largest buildings, shown above, on the south side of the Prado and at its east end. A half century ago a writer described how drummers announced decisions of the ayuntamiento from the front of Palma's town hall.