Main Quad and Memorial Court - Where It All Began
Photo: Bohao Zhao, CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
A stop on Stanford University Campus Walk, a free self-guided tour.
You are at the front door of the original university. The Main Quad's cornerstone was laid on May 14, 1887, the day Leland Jr. would have turned 19, and most of its long sandstone buildings were ready for the first students in 1891. The architects, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, carried on the style of the late Henry Hobson Richardson, pairing heavy Romanesque arches with the red tile roofs of California's missions. The buff sandstone came from a quarry near San Jose on a private rail spur.
Memorial Court, the open forecourt around you, once ended in a towering memorial arch. The 1906 earthquake brought it down, and it was never rebuilt.
The bronze figures here are casts of Rodin's Burghers of Calais: six town leaders who, in 1347, offered their lives to England's King Edward III to save their besieged city. Walk among them and study their faces and hands.
The Oval lies just ahead, closing the loop where you started.
Getting here: Walk west about 300 meters from Hoover Tower to the front of the Main Quad, where it faces the Oval.
Did you know?: The Main Quad was not fully finished until 1906, the same year the earthquake badly damaged it.
Photo op: Stand among the Burghers and frame one figure against the sandstone arches of the Quad behind it.
More on Wikipedia: Main Quad · The Burghers of Calais · Shepley Bulfinch · Henry Hobson Richardson
Stops on this tour
- The Oval and Palm Drive - A Grand Front Door
- Bing Concert Hall - Every Seat Close to the Music
- Cantor Arts Center - A Museum Born of Grief
- Arizona Cactus Garden - A House That Never Was
- Rodin Sculpture Garden - Facing The Gates of Hell
- Engineering Quad - Where Ideas Get Built
- Memorial Church - Gold, Glass and a Fallen Spire
- White Plaza - The Claw and Campus Life
- Hoover Tower - A Library Standing on End
- Main Quad and Memorial Court - Where It All Began