San Diego's Botanical Building, seen here with dramatic up-lighting and large reflecting pool, creates a vivid nighttime scene. Despite exorbitant refurbishment costs and constant maintenance, Balboa Park's botanical Building endures, closing in on the century mark.
     The original plan, a Spanish renaissance design, was approved by the Panama-California Exposition's chief designers, John Olmstead and Irving Gill. Still today, reasons behind the design change remain unknown, but by 1913 work began on the large redwood lath enclosure. Later, the Horticultural Building name was dropped. Three periods of restoration began after World War II. Even with its dwindling footprint and a long list of problems, the southern California community will never part with this marvelous structure.