Ford Building History
The California Pacific International Exposition of 1935-36 spurred the development of the south end of Balboa Park. The Ford Motor Company, which elected to be the Exposition's major exhibitor, invested $2.8 million to build a hall for the Transportation Exhibition. The hall was designed to showcase the 1935 line of Ford cars and products, as well as other forms of transportation.
Construction progressed rapidly. Ford made the decision to build in February, and by May 29 they were celebrating completion of the project. The resulting building, with a 45,500 sq. ft. exhibit area, was the most expensive - and the most attention-grabbing - of the Exposition. It didn't hurt that potential Ford customers were able to test drive the latest Ford automobiles on a small road that wound around behind the building!
When the exposition ended in 1936, Ford donated the building to the City of San Diego. Subsequent users of the space included the National Guard and the Red Cross. During World War II, the Vocational School for Aircraft Industry trained employees in the building. After the war, park maintenance used it for storage. Plans to level the building due to the high costs of upkeep and restoration were halted in 1973 when it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. At that time the City Council designated the structure as the future home of the San Diego Air & Space Museum .
The building represents a style of architecture called "Streamlined Moderne." During the late thirties, the building reflected the latest in design and technology. The designer, Walter Dorwin Teague, made sure that "every line and detail was carefully worked out to exemplify the latest ideas in Moderne industrial architecture." Similar buildings were built for the New York World Fair and San Francisco Fair of the same year. None of these other buildings exist today, making the Ford building one of the last remaining examples of this historical architectural style.
Planning was well underway to relocate the Air & Space Museum when in 1978 an arson fire destroyed the existing collection, then held in the Balboa Park Electrical Building. The citizens of San Diego rallied after the fire, donating funds and personal possessions to help the museum's collection grow again. With a much smaller--but continually growing--number of items on display, the museum re-opened to the public in the Ford Building on June 28, 1980.
A few years later, the Air & Space Museum's collection grew to such an extent that an alternate location was needed to store the overflow. Two hangars at Gillespie Field were acquired to store many of the Museum's additional airplanes, as well as an educational center and restoration shop. The Gillespie Field Annex, as it called today, serves the community of San Diego by holding regular education activities for the East County and El Cajon school districts, and offers free tours and workshops for the public.
Over 10,000 square feet of murals were painted on the building's interior walls. Designed by famed Mexican artist Juan Larrinaga and entitled The March Of Transportation, the principle mural chronicles man’s ideas and methods of transportation through history, offering insight into what the artists of the 1930s predicted for the future of transportation.