History Days Lecture: Timothy Pflueger, Architect of Pacific Unity

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Among the architects in charge of creating the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-1940, Timothy Pflueger was one of the most influential, and his Federal Building was seen as one of the few modernist designs at a fair that was mostly the last gasp of the Art Deco style. He also designed the California Building, the San Francisco Building, and the Court of Pacifica.

In all of these works, he hired many of his artist friends, such as Ralph Stackpole, who created the iconic sculpture of Pacifica. In 1940, when the fair was reborn for a second year, Pflueger hired the famed Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, to create a massive mural that would eventually find a home in San Francisco. Rivera was a key attraction at the dynamic Art in Action exhibition, where fairgoers could watch artwork in progress.

Speaker: Therese Poletti, author of Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger, and Preservation Director of the Art Deco Society.

This talk in Treasure Island Museum’s “Little Island – Big Ideas” Lecture Series is co-sponsored by the Art Deco Society of California.

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