1915 view of the palace dome. Click for larger view.   The hall itself covered some three acres of ground and was supported by unusually strong structural beams. The essentially Corinthian colonnade was framed in wood and then covered with staff, a mixture of plaster and burlap-type fiber. So too was the Romanesque rotunda. Staff was the ideal material for a building of this kind; it was completely pliable and various finishes could make it appear like stone or marble. Although constructed to achieve mood, the Palace was rescued from any danger of superficiality by a firm underlying geometric pattern.   The palace lagoon. Click for larger view.     Many of the decorative elements were designed by a young architect in Maybeck's office, William Merchant. Beneath the dome of the rotunda were eight panels in low relief by Bruno L. Zimm, symbolizing Greek culture and its desire for poetic and artistic expression. The weeping figures surrounding the boxes on the colonnade were the work of the sculptor Ulric Ellerhusen. Some say they were intended to express Contemplation; others, the melancholy of life without art. These lachrymose ladies were to have been partially shrouded by vines watered by their tears, but funds were insufficient to provide all the greenery that Maybeck had wanted. Therefore the boxes at the top of the columns were never planted. Nor were the redwood trees which were to have surrounded the Palace, to add to the romantic atmosphere.     © 1998, The Exploratorium