April 10, 2012

Stanford University


click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Feeling just a little bit out of place, one week ago I made my way down to the Stanford University campus for the first of ten sessions of Art-237, Developing your Photographic Vision.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Fortunately, to attend the Continuing Education night-classes, no entrance examinations are required. I guess they didn't realize I was going to show up...



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

I was surprised to find that Leland Stanford's church sits smack dab in the center of the campus. The stone-work and mosaics are out-of-this-world. The church was locked up tighter than a drum but if the exterior is any indication, there is great architecture inside.

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 and, especially, Ravenna. Its stained glass windows and extensive mosaics are based on religious paintings the Stanfords admired in Europe. The church has four 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.
[source:  Wikipedia]



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Leland Stanford, a Californian railroad tycoon and politician, founded the university in 1891 in honor of his son, Leland Stanford, Jr., who died of typhoid two months before his 16th birthday. The university was established as a coeducational and nondenominational institution, but struggled financially after the senior Stanford's 1893 death and after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates' entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would become known as Silicon Valley.

Stanford, is an American private research university located on an 8,180-acre campus near Palo Alto, California.
[source:  Wikipedia]


CLICK for the very "best" of my work on my photo website.

2 comments:

John @ Beans and I on the Loose said...

Okay, I now understand yesterday's header photo. Sorry I thought ill of you.

AphotoAday said...

Hi, JOHN (SINBAD'S DAD) -- Yeah, I knew you'd figure it out. I usually get the "weebiejeebies" every time I go near a church.

 
under construction