Stanford University History

Stanford Landmarks

Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery

Stanford's younger brother, Thomas Welton Stanford, contributed funds to the University for its Art Gallery, which was completed in 1917. Gallery exhibits, including student shows in art and architecture, change throughout the year. The adjoining Nathan Cummings Art Building was dedicated in 1969. It provides space for teaching, studios and exhibitions.

The gallery has special exhibitions free to the public Tuesday-Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, and Saturday-Sunday, 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. For docent tours, call (650) 723-3469.

Bechtel International Center

The Bechtel International Center serves as a hub for interaction among foreign and U.S. students and visiting scholars at the University. It is a non-residential facility which provides services and program opportunities that contribute to international understanding, an important component of education at Stanford. Originally constructed in 1919 as a fraternity house, the building became the "I-Center" in 1963.

Campus Sculpture

The Stanford University campus is the site of more than 25 major works of sculpture and fountains. These range from late nineteenth century funerary art to contemporary sculpture of the 1980s, including works by Henry Moore, Auguste Rodin, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, George Segal, and Joan Miro. There are figurative and non-representational works in various materials including steel, brick and aluminum, as well as traditional marble and bronze.

For docent tours, call (650) 723-3469.

Rodin Sculpture Garden

The B. Gerald Cantor Rodin Sculpture Garden, dedicated in May 1985, contains the largest public concentration of Auguste Rodin's bronze sculpture in the world. The Gates of Hell, Rodin's personalized vision of humanity's fate, dominates the Garden, with 20 others large figures spaced on land located beside the Leland Stanford Jr. Museum of Art.

The Rodin Sculpture Garden is open 24 hours daily. For docent tours, call (650) 723-3469.

Laurence Frost Amphitheater

Laurence Frost Amphitheater is an earthen bowl formed by excavating 22 feet below ground level and by raising an embankment a similar distance. From the outside, the amphitheater has the appearance of a wooded hill. Within, it is a sylvan theater of green lawn, trees, shrubs and flowers. Approximately 150 tree specimens are growing in and around the bowl. These include many varieties of oak, flowering apple, birch, maple, elm, beech, California bay, conifers, magnolia, manzanita, mulberry, mountain lilac, cherry, liquid-amber, flowering locust and linden. The terraced, grass-covered area seats 6,900. The amphitheater is used for University ceremonies, performing arts events and other programs.

Hanna House

Designed by world famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the Hanna House was constructed on campus in 1937. Characteristics of Wright's Prairie and Usonian houses are evident in the design, based on a hexagonal module. The American Institute of Architects designated the house as one of 17 buildings designed by Wright that exemplify the architect's contribution to American culture. Professor Paul Hanna gave his home to the University in 1974. In 1978, the house was entered on the National Register of Historic Places. The Hanna House was closed for 10 years due to damage sustained during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Hoover Institution

During World War I when he headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, Herbert Hoover made numerous trips across the submarine-infested North Sea. On one of these voyages he read the statement of an eminent historian that it is difficult to piece together the objective story of a war because contemporary documents are destroyed. Mr. Hoover was struck with the thought that his relief work - which later was to extend to other parts of Europe - placed him in a position to document the first World War, and soon he was shipping crates of material to the library at Stanford, his alma mater.

This was the beginning of the Hoover War Library, now known as the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. It is housed in the 285-foot Hoover Tower, which was dedicated at the University's 50th anniversary celebration in 1941, and in the adjoining Lou Henry Hoover Building, which opened in 1967. Mr. Hoover said at the 1941 ceremony:

"The purpose of this institution is to promote peace. Its records stand as a challenge to those who promote war. They should attract those who search for peace. I therefore dedicate this building to these purposes."

A third building, the Herbert Hoover Memorial Building, honors the former president for his many humanitarian endeavors and distinguished public service. Completed in 1978, it was built with federal and matching funds.

The library of the Hoover Institution constitutes one of the largest repositories in the world of materials on 20th century social, economical and political change, with over 1.6 million items, including books, documents, files, manuscripts, diaries, pamphlets, posters, maps and photos and 4,000 collections. There are about 30,000 newspaper and periodical titles. The Institution has more material on the growth and spread of Communism than can be found anywhere outside of Russia. It has more pro- and anti-Mussolini data than can be found in Italy. It has probably the most complete record on Hitler and the Nazi movement. It is the place where scholars can document the rise of the Chinese Communist government.

It sponsors an extensive research and publication program of its own. Its staff represents some 15 nationalities and speaks 25 languages. More than a thousand visiting scholars a year come from all over the world. The fundamental purpose of the Institution remains true to the lofty mission its founder envisioned year ago - to impart knowledge and understanding and to preserve peace and freedom through its scholarly research in international studies, domestic studies and national security affairs.

At the top of the Hoover Tower is a carillon of 35 bells cast in Tournai, Belgium, the gift of the Belgian-American Education Foundation. The largest bell is inscribed, "For Peace Alone Do I Ring." Two rooms on the ground floor contain exhibits of many items from Mr. and Mrs. Hoover's international careers. The 285-foot landmark offers views of campus as well as the Silicon valley and mid-peninsula.

The observation deck is open daily from 10 am to 4 pm.

Lou Henry Hoover House

On the crown of San Juan Hill, behind the flat plain on which the red-tiled academic buildings of Stanford are located, sits the Lou Henry Hoover House. The home was built by Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover, alumni of Stanford, in 1919-1920. Herbert Hoover was in residence in 1929 when news came of his election as the 31st President of the United States. It was presented to the University in 1944 following the death of Hoover's wife, and name in her honor. In 1985 it was entered on the National Register of Historic Places. It now serves as the home of the University President.

Memorial Church

A dominant architectural feature of the University's Main Quadrangle is the massive outline of Memorial Church, decorated with an exquisite exterior mosaic.

Following Mr. Stanford's death in 1893, Jane Stanford determined that the Church would be built as a memorial to him. The center of the campus was chosen as its location because the Stanfords believed that spiritual understanding through an ethical education was the highest wisdom a person could find in life.

To serve the widest needs of the campus community, Mrs. Stanford specified that the Church was to be non-sectarian and at no time tied to any particular denomination. This respect for diversity, reflected in one of the 28 inscriptions Mrs. Stanford chose from notes she made over many years of reading religious literature, is carved low on the church walls for all the students to see:

Religion is intended as a comfort, a solace, a necessity to the soul's welfare; and whichever form of religion offers the greatest comfort, the greatest solace, it is the form which should be adopted, be its name what it will. The best form of religion is trust in God and a firm belief in the immortality of the soul, life everlasting.

Ground was broken in May 1899 for a cruciform structure (190 feet in length and 150 feet in width), and Mrs. Stanford personally monitored the progress of the Church's construction. It was dedicated on Sunday, January 25, 1903. Charles E. Hodges, the resident architect, has written that Mrs. Stanford could read blueprints like an expert and recalled that she would follow him onto the high scaffolding.

"She invariably carried a parasol. It was notched at the lower end. She would run it into the carving and if it did not come up to the mark, she would ask me to have it cut a little deeper."

Mrs. Stanford chose the final designs for the windows and mosaics, traveling to the Salviati Studios in Venice, Italy to approve the mosaic sketches, and personally obtained papal permission to reproduce, in mosaics, Roselli's 15th century fresco of the "Last Supper" which is located behind the high altar. The building, inside and out, is a lasting expression of her sentiment,

"while my whole heart is in this University, my soul is in that Church."

The most striking feature of the Church is the brilliant mosaic work which covers the interior walls in the lavish style of the Byzantine period. The interior mosaics depict scenes from the Old Testament. The large mosaic on the facade of the church is an original design by Antonio Paoletti and is the only mosaic depicting the New Testament.

The large stained glass windows deal with the life of Christ and were adapted from well-known paintings of the time by Frederick Lamb, a prominent American stained glass artist. The one exception is an original window designed by Paoletti depicting Christ appearing to many and receiving into heaven a dead child whose body is cradled by his loving mother. Located to the right of the nave entrance, this window allegorizes the Stanford's loss of their beloved son Leland. The upper, or clerestory, windows depict Old Testament characters and New Testament saints, arranged alternatively male and female. This equal representation of women and men in the art of the Church is one of its most remarkable features.

The earthquake of 1906 damaged the structure severely. Another set of mosaics was brought from Venice but the 80-foot spire, which crowned the original structure and which housed a clock and chimes, was never rebuilt. The clock and chimes were restored and are now housed in a clock tower located at the southeast corner of the Quad. Damage to the stained glass windows was surprisingly light, and the same was true of the massive romantic-style pipe organ.

The original Murray Harris organ, which was built in 1901 and survived the 1906 earthquake, has since been expanded to 7,777 pipes. It is best suited for 19th- and 20th century music. The Fisk-Nanney organ was installed in Memorial Church in 1983 and is the only large pipe organ in the world that can play in two different historic tuning systems. It has four keyboards and is designed for Baroque music. The third organ is modeled on a chamber organ built in Germany 1610. This new Potter-Brinegar organ was built by Paul Tritts and Company of Tacoma, Washington and dedicated in a concert on April 21, 1996. There are many concerts on these great organs in Memorial Church throughout the year.

The Church is open daily. For tours, call (650) 723-1762.

Memorial Hall

Memorial Hall, dedicated in 1937, was built primarily through student contributions as a memorial to Stanford students and faculty who died in World War I. Since then plaques honoring the Stanford dead of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam have been installed. The main auditorium seats 1,700 and there is a 200-seat Little Theater.

The Cantor Center (The Stanford Museum)

After Leland Jr.'s death, the Stanfords gave some thought to building a museum in San Francisco in his memory; when they later decided to establish the University, they provided for the Museum in the Founding Grant. It was opened within a year after classes first met in 1891 and Mrs. Stanford continued to build up its displays of art objects. She gained special government permission to open the great Baron Ikeda collection while it waited at the San Francisco docks on its journey from Japan to London for sale - and it went to Stanford instead. She was the "unknown millionaire from the West" who out-bid the Boston Museum for the Cesnola collection of classical antiquities from Cyprus. And it was she who acquired the Museum's excellent Egyptian material through discerning support of the Egypt Exploration Society.

The Museum's permanent exhibits include galleries of ancient Oriental and primitive art, and baroque painting and prints. Outstanding are the Mortimer C. Leventritt Collection of Oriental and Venetian Art, the B. Gerald Cantor collection of Rodin sculpture and the Frank E. Buck Jade collection. Temporary shows are presented in the Sarah Love Miedel room and the Marie Stauffer Sigall Gallery.

The life of the Founders of the University and their son is unfolded in the Stanford Room. Here is displayed the gold Spike which Senator Stanford drove at Promontory, Utah in 1869 to unite the Central Pacific and Union Pacific rails. Also displayed are the cases containing Leland Jr.'s sketchbooks, ship models, stream engines and collections of ancient coins, Roman weapons, Greek vases and Egyptian bronzes. These interest revealed to his parents the precocious youth's facility for mechanics and his aptitude for historical and ethnological studies, as well as various art forms. They indulged his hobbies at home and on their several European trips.

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) is devoted to experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics and to the development of new techniques in high energy accelerators and elementary particle detectors. SLAC, with its two-mile-long linear accelerator, occupies 480 acres of University property west of the main campus and is operated under a contract with the Department of Energy.

For tours, call (650) 926-2204.

Stanford Medical Center

The Stanford School of Medicine can trace its history to 1858, when Samuel Elias Cooper founded the Far West's first medical school in San Francisco. Stanford Trustees accepted Cooper Medical College as part of the University in 1908, and in 1953 the Trustees made the bold decision to build a completely new Stanford Medical Center on the main campus. Designed by renowned architect Edward Durell Stone, it was dedicated in September 1959.

One of the world's leading institutions in medical education, research, and patient treatment and care, the center is home of the Stanford School of Medicine, the Stanford University Hospital, the Stanford University Clinic, and the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford.

The Stanford University Hospital, a university-owned corporation, serves some 23,000 admitted patients and some 29,000 emergency room patients each year. The hospital offers general medical care to Peninsula residents, and is a world famous resource for the treatment of complicated and unusual disorders. The 1,200 members of the medical staff include both community physicians and the medical school's full-time faculty.

For self-guided tours of the collection of contemporary art at Stanford University Hospital, call (650) 723-7167.

The 125-bed Packard children's Hospital is separate from, but affiliated with, Stanford University Hospital. Each benefits from the scientific knowledge that flows from Stanford's medical laboratories. The Children's Hospital carries pediatric medicine into a new age, utilizing increased understanding of the genetic structure and chemistry of life to eliminate a host of childhood diseases

The Stanford University Clinic, the site of faculty members' outpatient practices, includes more than 100 clinics ranging from primary care to medical and surgical sub-specialties.

Adjoining the Medical Center are the Lane Medical Library, the Sherman Fairchild Center, the Mayer Cancer Biology Research Laboratory and the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine.

Stanford Research Park

Stanford Research Park was created in 1951 in response to the demand for industrial land near university resources and an emerging electronics industry tied closely to a prominent electronics department at Stanford.

Most of the park was developed through long-term ground leases with companies engaged in research and development. Lessees designed and constructed their own buildings with university approval of exterior architectural design.

The first lessee was Varian Associates, which leased 10 acres for 99 years. Soon to follow were Eastman Kodak, General Electric, and Hewlett-Packard. By the late 1970s, the research park's 704 acres were leased by approximately 70 tenants employing 26,000 employees.

Today, the Stanford Research Park is home to more than 150 companies in electronics, software, biotechnology, and other high-tech fields. A number of top law firms, financial service firms, strategic consultants, and venture capital companies also find the research part an outstanding location. Research and development and service companies now occupy some 10 million square feet in more than 160 buildings.

Stanford Shopping Center

The conveyance of the Stanfords' lands to the trustees represents the main endowment of the university. The Stanfords intended that their land be used to support the academic goals of the university, and decreed in the Founding Grant that

"...the rents, issues, and profits thereof shall be devoted to the foundation and maintenance of the University hereby founded and endowed..."

In the post World War II years, the university began to develop ideas for generating revenue from its land endowment to support the institution. Stanford Shopping Center (approximately 70 acres) opened in 1956 at the northern end of the campus. Expanded with additional multiple and major tenant buildings in 1978 and 1983, Stanford Shopping Center has become one of the nation's leading centers in revenue and sales volume, and now features over 140 stores, restaurants, and services.

White Memorial Plaza

Connecting the Main quad to a campus service center is White Memorial Plaza, a 200,000-square-foot landscaped area. Focal point of the plaza is a tall, free-form fountain, executed in bonze by the San Francisco sculptor, Aristides Demetrios. Included in the area are the "Old Union", the Stanford Bookstore, the Career Planning and Placement Center, the Stanford Post Office, Florence Dinkelspiel Music Auditorium and Tresidder Memorial Union. The area is bordered by the Braun Music Center and its Campbell Recital Hall.

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