carnival expression. The general sculptured adornments are heavy
garlands and overflowing baskets, and profuse ornamentations of flowers.
Large flower-decked jars stand in niches; the cartouches bear the flower
motif. Suggestions of lattices and arbors appear in the low domes on the
porches surrounding the great greenhouses, reminiscent of French garden
architecture of the Great Age.

The superb central glass dome that gives the building distinction is
crowned by a huge flower basket and draped at its base by a long
garland. At the foot of the sharply ascending spires - the slender
shafts of which are carved with conventionalized vines and bear tapering
flower urns as finials - stand graceful garlands of girls. These
pleasing spire bases, the attendants of Flora, are by Ernest Louis
Boutier, a Parisian. They carry small baskets of flowers on their heads,
a chain of flowers binds them. The same feeling is continued in the
caryatids on this building, by John Bateman. These, also flower-capped,
are repeated on the Press and Y. W. C. A. buildings, smaller structures
in the South Gardens adjoining the Horticultural Palace, thus unifying
the buildings in the plaza.



Cortez
In Front of Tower of Jewels



Equestrian statues of Cortez and Pizzaro stand in the Avenue of Palms at
the base of the Tower of Jewels to suggest the early history of the
South and West of this hemisphere as a background to the present