The style of architecture has been guessed at as everything from Romanesque and Gothic to Flamboyant Renaissance and Moorish. The truth is that the court is a thoroughly original conception; and the architect has clothed his pre-conceived design in forms that he has borrowed from all these styles as they happened to suit his artistic purpose. The spirit of the court is clearly Gothic, due to the accentuation of the vertical lines-and one will note how the slender cypresses help the architecture to convey this impression. The rounded arches, modified in feeling by the decorative pendent lanterns, hint of the awakening of the Renaissance period in Spain, during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, when the vertical lines, and decorative leaf and other symbolic ornaments of the severer Gothic, were so charmingly combined with classic motives.

The architecture here is inspiring as a symbol of the American "melting-pot." It is a distinct and original evolution, recalling the great arts of Europe, and yet eluding classification. The court shows that the designer was master of the styles of the past, but refused to be a slave to them; at the same time he had an original conception but did not let it run into the blatant and bizarre. It is from such fusions of individual genius with the traditions of the past that a distinctive American architecture is most likely to flower.

The tower is a magnificent bit of architectural design. It is massive and yet delicate. It dominates the court, and yet it fits perfectly into the cloister. The rich sculpture is so much a part of the decorative scheme that there is no impression of the structure having been "ornamented." One must search long in the histories of architecture to find a tower more satisfying.

The architect who designed the Court of Abundance is Louis Christian Mullgardt, one of the two most original geniuses among California's architects.

It is well to enjoy this court at first for its beauty alone, without regard to its rich symbolism. One who has thus considered it, merely as a delight to the eye, usually is surprised to find that it has a deeper underlying meaning than any of the other courts. The present name, "Court of Abundance," is not the original one. The architect conceived it as "The Court of The Ages." It is said that the Exposition directors, for the rather foolish reason that a Court of the Ages would not fit into the scheme of a strictly contemporaneous exposition, re-christened it "The Court of Abundance." But it is the former name that sums up the thought behind the decorative features.

The underlying idea is that of evolution. The tower sculptures, which will be more fully explained in following paragraphs, represent successive ages in the development of man-the Stone Age, the Mediaeval Age, and the Present Age. The decoration of the cloisters may be taken as symbolizing the evolution of primitive man from the lower forms of life. Thus the ornamental garlands that run up the sides of the arches are of seaweed, while other parts of the decoration show crabs, lobsters and other of the lower forms of sea life. Higher up the ornament includes conventionalized lilies suggestive of higher plant life. And surmounting the colonnade, one over each pier, are the repeated figures of primitive man and primitive woman. It is at this height that the tower sculptures begin, carrying on the story of man up to the present age. At a level between the Stone Age group and the Mediaeval Age is a row of cocks, symbols of the rise of Christianity. Perhaps the whole aspiring feeling of the court is meant to further suggest the upward rise of man-but after all, the purely sensuous beauty of the architecture is sufficient to warrant its being, without any straining after symbolism.