The Court of the Ages
and not The Court of Abundance



Architect - Louis Christian Mullgardt of San Francisco.

Architecture - If one could call this beautiful architecture by name one
might say Spanish Gothic, on account of the round-arched Gothic and also
the Spanish finials used, but it is so thoroughly original that this is
hardly the term to use. It is Romanesque in its vaulting of the
corridor, and at first glance in its great square tower, and arches, and
yet not Romanesque architecture.

It is suggestive of the last period of English Gothic in its rich
parallelism of vertical line - and yet is not that.

It is suggestive of the flamboyant decoration of the French architecture
such as one sees and feels at Rouen Cathedral - and yet, not that, for
on looking closer one sees not wavy line suggesting flame, but the wave
of the kelp of the sea - and then one realizes that the vertical lines
represent falling water.

The kelp is turned, looped and suspended with all sorts of lobsters,
crabs, sea-turtles, octopi, flounders, etc., wriggling thru it, not seen
at first, then in strong evidence, making you wonder why you had not
seen them before.

The whole cloister represents the magical power of water and fire worked