The Ford Building

by Michael Satterfield – 09/25/2024

The Ford Building was designed for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park, San Diego. The exposition was designed to help stimulate the economy that the depression had ravaged. Ford Motor Company built the Ford Building, which today serves as the home of the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

The architect was noted American industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague. The building was styled to resemble a V8 engine. Overall, it consists of two different-sized circles in the shape of an “8. ” In the courtyard of the larger circle, there is a large fountain shaped like the Ford V8 logo.

The lights in the courtyard (“Pavilion of Flight”) are shaped like valves. Along the interior wall of the outer ring is a mural depicting the history of transportation from the times of hunter-gatherers through 1935. The last panel of the mural was left open for the artist to depict his vision of the future of transportation after 1935, which is still visible today.

By the end of the exhibition, 2.5 million people had toured the building and its exhibits. The city of San Diego was given the building at the end of the exhibition in November 1935. The city decided to extend the exhibition into 1936 and renamed the building “The Palace of Transportation” to showcase exhibits related to transportation.

The building would be used for storage, and for a short time in 1968, it was the home to the Chicano artist group Los Toltecas en Aztlán. The public would not step foot into the building again until 1980, when it was reopened as the San Diego Air & Space Museum.