San Francisco Welcomes The Restored Palace Of Fine Arts
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - San Francisco is about to celebrate the completion of the restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts.
The fences around part of the lagoon were scheduled to come down shortly, and the swans have already returned.
KCBS' Margie Shafer Reports:
"We're just about ready to celebrate its restoration, which has been going on since about 2004," explained Jan Berckefeldt, executive director of the Maybeck Foundation.
The Palace is a legacy of Bernard Maybeck, an early advocate of designing architecture into nature, who also worked with John McClarren, credited with designing Golden Gate Park.
Funds for the restoration came from a public-private partnership, including 1,200 donations from community members.
"It's beautiful and it's exciting and it's truly a gift to the City," declared Berckefeldt.
"We didn't get as many large gifts as in former times but it also caused people with smaller gifts to come forward and really make it happen," she described the fundraising efforts.
The most expensive element of the restoration was the seismic retrofit of the rotunda.
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