Q 01/05

The Palace of Fine Arts, built for a 1915 world's fair, was designed to look like what?

A) A medieval Gothic cathedral

B) An ancient Roman ruin

C) An Egyptian temple

D) A Venetian basilica

Answer · why

B) An ancient Roman ruin

An ancient Roman ruin was the idea: the architect imagined a crumbling relic from another age, a quiet place between the crowded fairgrounds and the a...

Q 02/05

Which hands-on science museum called the Palace of Fine Arts home from 1969 until moving out in 2013?

A) Lawrence Hall of Science

B) The Tech Interactive

C) Exploratorium

D) Academy of Sciences

Answer · why

C) Exploratorium

The Exploratorium opened with little fanfare in 1969, and visitors were allowed to watch exhibits being built because there was no money to finish the...

Q 03/05

A motor pool at the Palace of Fine Arts supplied limousines to statesmen founding which body in 1945?

A) The Red Cross

B) The World Bank

C) The League of Nations

D) The United Nations

Answer · why

D) The United Nations

The United Nations Charter was signed that June across town at the Herbst Theatre; the Palace hall had spent the war storing army trucks and jeeps.

Q 04/05

Which celebration of a mathematical constant began in 1988 at a museum inside the Palace of Fine Arts?

A) Tau Day

B) Mole Day

C) Pi Day

D) Phi Day

Answer · why

C) Pi Day

Pi Day began when museum physicist Larry Shaw led staff and visitors in a march around a circular space, then served fruit pies.

Q 05/05

Which Alfred Hitchcock thriller has James Stewart and Kim Novak walk past the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts?

A) Rear Window

B) Vertigo

C) The Birds

D) Psycho

Answer · why

B) Vertigo

Vertigo was shot across San Francisco, and in 2012 critics in the Sight & Sound poll voted it the greatest film ever made, ending the long reign of Ci...