California Tower - Balboa Park

From the second floor of the Museum, you go up a staircase hidden to the public for decades. Then you climb seven floors, getting glimpses through narrow windows of the beauty outside. Finally, you climb a spiral metal stairway and emerge into sunlight where you will see a spectacular Southern California vista. All of the California Buildings, as the structures housing the Museum of Man are called, were completed in 1914, and officially opened in 1915 as part of the Panama-California Exposition. They were designed by Bertram Goodhue, who was inspired by the churches of Mexico and Spain. Even though the California Buildings resemble a church, they have never been a church and have been exhibition halls from the start — except when they were used as a Naval hospital during World War II. The Tower was closed to the public shortly after the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition.