page_title: Stanford Memorial Church
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Stanford Memorial Church / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Some of the stained glass windows of Stanford Memorial Church, as seen from the church's exterior. The carvings were created in 1906 after an earthquake damaged the original structure; hence, they are in the public domain (PD-US).[1]
context_page_description: Stanford Memorial Church is located on the Main Quad at the center of the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. It was built during the American Renaissance by Jane Stanford as a memorial to her husband Leland. Designed by architect Charles A. Coolidge, a student of Henry Hobson Richardson, the church has been called "the University's architectural crown jewel".
  Designs for the church were submitted to Jane Stanford and the university trustees in 1898, and it was dedicated in 1903. The building is Romanesque in form and Byzantine in its details, inspired by churches in the region of Venice, especially, Ravenna. Its stained glass windows and extensive mosaics are based on religious paintings the Stanfords admired in Europe. The church has five pipe organs, which allow musicians to produce many styles of organ music. Stanford Memorial Church has withstood two major earthquakes, in 1906 and 1989, and was extensively renovated after each.
  Stanford Memorial Church was the earliest and has been "among the most prominent" non-denominational churches on the West Coast of the United States.
context_section_description: Stanford Memorial Church is part of a linked, complex system of arcades that make up the Quad, which serves to unify the entire complex, is more reminiscent of European public spaces than American ones, and "is probably one of the most important feature of the original Stanford architecture".  It was built during the American Renaissance period.  Gregg called the church "a perfect example of the movement", with elements of the Renaissance, Byzantine and Medieval art, the Romanesque period, and the Pre-Raphaelites.  The architectural style of Stanford Memorial Church has been referred to as "a stunning example of late Victorian ecclesiastical art and architecture with echoes of Pre-Raphaelitism".  Stanford historian Richard Joncas called the church "an opulent example of high Victorian architecture with sumptuous materials and arts".
  The original designs for Memorial Church and much of the university were made in 1886 by prominent American architect Henry Hobson Richardson; when he died that same year, his student Charles A. Coolidge completed them.  Coolidge loosely based his design of Memorial Church on Richardson's design of Trinity Church in Boston.  The church's heavy red tile roofs, round turrets, low arches, and rough-hewn stonework matches the design of other buildings in the Quad.  After Jane Stanford's legal difficulties after her husband's death were resolved, she hired San Francisco architect Clinton E. Day to review and update the church's blueprints.  Charles E. Hodges was the supervising architect for the project.  Jane Stanford hired builder John McGilvray, who was responsible for constructing the St. Francis Hotel, the City Hall complex in San Francisco, and much of Stanford University, for the actual construction of Stanford Memorial Church.
  Jane Stanford's taste and knowledge of both contemporary and classical art is evident in several aspects of the plan, appearance, and architecture of the church, which "dazzle the eye yet also produce an atmosphere of quiet contemplation".  According to Joncas, "the church emulates the 'glorious color' of the great European cathedrals", especially those in Italy.  Although the iconography in the church is Christian, Stanford was a "late Victorian progressive", and chose the art less for its religious themes and more for its "humanitarian ethics".  She requested that the designs include women, "to show the uplifting influence of religion for women"; Architectural historian Willis L. Hall claims that there are more depictions of women than in most church imagery at the time.  Art historian Judy Oberhausen reports that Stanford used compendium of biblical illustrations like The Story of the Bible by Charles Foster, which contained 300 illustrations and summarized the events and stories she wished to depict in the church's windows and mosaics.
  Jane Stanford's design included inspirational messages placed throughout the church in the form of inscriptions carved into its walls and enclosed in carved frameworks.  As Barbara Palmer of the Stanford Report stated, Stanford "had her religious beliefs literally carved into the church's sandstone walls".  For example, the following quotations can be found in the church's east transept:
  Religion is intended as a comfort, a solace, a necessity to the soul's welfare; and whichever form of religion furnishes 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.
caption: Details of the upper windows of the facade
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