These eleven great palaces, together with Festival Hall, form the central setting of a beautiful picture, flanked on the city side by “The Zone” or amusement section and other end by the buildings of the various states and the pavilions of the foreign nations. These latter join the aviation field, race track, and live stock exhibit, terminating in the grounds of a great military reservation, the Presidio, where the competitive drills and army maneuvers will take place.

In formation the eight main exhibit palaces—Education, Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Varied Industries, Agriculture, Food Products, Transportation and Mines and Metallurgy—represent a quadrangle, being bisected by an avenue east and west and intersected by avenues north and south, the intersections marking the three great courts. The facades of the palaces are the walls of these courts and partake of the particular style of architecture dominating the court on which they front. These eight palaces are flanked on the east by the great Palace of Machinery and on the west by the Palace of Fine Arts.

Passing through the main gate on the city side the visitor enters the great South Garden, 3000 feet in length, on the right extremity of which can be seen the beautiful Festival Hall. To the extreme left is the Palace of Horticulture. Immediately in front is the Main Tower or “Tower of Jewels.” This great garden, itself a marvel of landscape engineering skill, is but one side of a magic carpet on which these beautiful palaces are set, the 300-foot wide “Marina” and its grand esplanade, with its floricultural splendors, forming the other side, the pattern threading its winding way through the various courts and recesses over the entire grounds, forming a correlated whole which, for wondrous beauty, has never been equaled.

Passing from this great garden under the arch of the main tower the visitor enters the “Court of the Universe,” the largest of five courts of the Exposition. This is the meeting place of the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and the decorative scheme on each side is typical of this theme. On the extreme right and left are two great Triumphal Arches, the one on the right, which leads to the Court of Abundance, being surmounted by a magnificent statuary group, “The Nations of the East,” the figures symbolizing life in the Orient, while the arch on the left, leading to the Court of the Four Seasons, has a group of the same proportions, “The Nations of the West,” symbolical of life in the Occident. Straight ahead is the colossal Column of Progress, surmounted by the “Adventurous Bowman” shooting the arrow toward the West.

To the right, under the “Arch of the Rising Sun,” is the avenue leading to the “Court of Abundance,” which terminates at its southern extremity into the “Court of Flowers,” one of the minor courts; while to the left, under the “Arch of the Setting Sun,” is the avenue leading to the beautiful “Court of the Four Seasons.” Continuing straight ahead one comes to the edge of the spacious Yacht Harbor and the center of the Grand Esplanade or “Marina.” Long after the Exposition is over—when it is only a fond and loving memory—this esplanade will remain to grace and enhance the natural beauties of San Francisco Bay.

This is the first Exposition to have a uniform color scheme. From one end to the other, throughout the entire area of the site—whether it be within the boundaries of “The Zone” or among the buildings and pavilions of the states and foreign nations, or in the midst of the great palaces themselves— the same beautiful, soft, entrancing color scheme prevails. Under the direction of Jules Guerin, the famous colorist, the world will be shown a study in natural tints unlike anything ever before attempted and which at once commands the attention and admiration of all beholders. The palaces themselves are of a soft, cold, gray tin, a kind of smoked ivory, at once pleasing and restful to the eyes, and which forms a foundation or background for the vivid coloring of doorways, the vari-tinted shrubbery, the beds of flowers and matchless lawns.

One of the most attractive and beautiful features of this Exposition is the electrical illumination. By an entirely new system of flood lighting, a soft, restful, yet perfect light pervades the courts at night, revealing in wonderful clearness the facades and walls of the palaces and the natural colors of the shrubbery and flowers, giving an effect as bright and soft as daylight.