User:Footpathandstile/Main Quad (Stanford University)

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Architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who created the university's first Master Plan, called for the university to be primarily housed in an inner and outer quadrangle. To design the quadrangle itself, the Stanfords in 1886

'''Although Leland Stanford had broached plans for a memorial university in 1884, the conception of a quandrangle-centered campus didn't formalize until 1886. In planning the new campus, the Stanfords consulted with Francis Walker, then president of the fledgling Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and with Frederick Law Olmsted, a seasoned landscape architect who had built Central Park and created early master plans for the University of California. The Stanfords invited the two to Palo Alto in August 1886 to survey the location. Olmsted initially proposed to build the campus on the foothills, but in fall of 1886, the Stanfords settled to build on flat farmland in Palo Alto.'''

In a November 30, 1886 report to Leland Stanford, Walker and Olmsted recommended a homogeneous campus of quadrangles, proposing that the 13 academic buildings be one-story structures constructed from “massive rough stone”. '''The Stanfords had hoped to mimic adobe, but considerations of climate and durability led them to settle on sandstone. Instead of the pink Utah sandstone reportedly favored by the architects, the Stanfords found a source of yellow sandstone at a nearby quarry. Late in the year they hired....'''

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The Inner Quad was mostly finished (except for the church) by the time the university opened in 1891. The Outer Quad and Memorial Church were completed by 1906, but the entire structure was severely damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

'''The construction of the church, which had been planned from the early years to create a focal point for Inner Quad, was delayed by legal disputes over the Stanford estate, and so was not completed until early in 1903. A review in the Harper’s Weekly estimated its cost to be somewhere around $600,000, or about $16 million in 2023. Outer Quad was also completed around this time, mostly under Coolidge's direction.'''

The campus was severely damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Restoration of the Quad began immediately, wrapping up in 1909 to a cost of around $700,000 , but several original features of the Quad that collapsed in the earthquake were never rebuilt: the huge Memorial Arch over the entrance to Memorial Court, and a spire on Memorial Church. Relics from the damaged buildings eventually found their way into nearby home gardens as decorative features.