Interior Description City of Paris Dry Goods Company, San Francisco California
The interior of the City of Paris is by far the building's most dramatic feature. It has a four-story high elliptical rotunda (thought to be the only one of its kind in existence) approximately 40 feet wide by 70 feet long by 80 feet high topped with an ovoid shaped stained and leaded glass dome of approximately the same dimensions. The rotunda is flanked by pairs of four columns arranged in horizontal semi-circular arcs around each side of the ellipse, approximately at fifth points, so that the space between the center and the ends of the arcs align with the Stockton-Geary Streets entrances respectively.
Each floor of the rotunda is treated distinctly; the first floor contains a marble ellipse of contrasting grays, defining the base of the rotunda. The second floor is supported on heavy composite columns, the projecting side containing an elaborate rosette, and the opposing sides bear the faces of caryatides linked with the rosettes by festoons of laurel leaves.
The third and fourth floors are supported jointly by a fluted flat column of Corinthian order, the opposing sides of which are bracketed with triglyphs at the intersection with each floor. These columns support a concave cantilevered frieze embellished with gold festoons that alter patterns in rhythm with both the supporting columns and the balustrade it in turn supports. This composition in effect establishes and completes the oval shape of the rotunda.
The fourth and top floor that supports the dome is designed in contradiction to the elegance of the floors below. Austere doric columns support a curved cornice set back from the balcony and are completely understated in order to not conflict with the ornate glass dome. At the north and south ends of the rotunda the cornice is suddenly squared off and flares upward, forming a scrolled pediment bearing symmetrical pairs of garlands and cornucopias. At the juncture of the two scrolls appears a head of Neptune that sets the theme for the oval skylight. From the heads radiate shafts of yellow light superimposed over entertwining bands of vegetable designs and strapwork in bolder yellow colors against a background of soft white, all in leaded glass. These designs converge upward terminating in an oval drum of the same glass in which a stylized ship, symbolic of the "Ville de Paris" first site of the store, sails against a background of fleur-de-lis over a swirling sea bearing the City of Paris motto "battered, but never sinking".
Attention should be called to the ornate wrought iron balustrades, especially that of the second level, which follows the undulations of the balcony while maintaining its own swirling "Greek wave" pattern in great complexity an amazing feat of design and craftsmanship.
The soffit of each balcony contains continuous series of holes at six-inch intervals woven into a repetitive raised fretwork. These holes originally contained light bulbs and the effect of these layers of light defining and highlighting the surfaces of gold leaf and soft colors must have been impressive.
