Sketching Together AIA Silicon Valley Chapter

Designed as an ‘architectural extension’ of the tech giant’s new Cupertino campus, apple’s new visitor center has opened its doors to the public. also designed by foster + partners, the new visitor center has been conceived as a gateway to apple park where guests can explore the campus in an immersive and engaging way. the structure includes many of the same design characteristics as its much larger neighbor, with similarly sculptural staircases, stone walls, and terrazzo floors.
foster + partners’ design also features a cantilevering carbon-fiber roof that provides shelter for outdoor seating areas, while a roof terrace offers a view of the campus’ main building. ‘the idea was to create a delicate pavilion where visitors can enjoy the same material palette and meticulous detailing seen in the ring building in a relaxed setting, against the backdrop of apple park,’ explains Stefan Behling, head of the studio, foster + partners.
internally, visitors are greeted with a large-scale model of the site, which has been milled and finished by the same machines that create apple’s signature products. At the visitor center's southern end is a secluded café, while exclusive merchandise is available as souvenirs. above, a screen of curved carbon-fiber fins shades the roof terrace, which provides views across the campus towards the ring building itself.

When it first opened its doors to the public in 1894, the Leland Stanford Jr. Museum was unique among American museums, having been privately founded by a family with a general collection of world art on a par with the major public museums being built at the time. For decades Leland Stanford and his wife Jane Stanford had traveled extensively, collecting American paintings and European Old Master paintings, as well as a wide array of antiquities from Egypt, Greece, Rome, Asia, the Americas, and other parts of the world. By the turn of the century, the Stanford museum, with its large archeological and ethnological holdings as well as art, was the largest privately-owned museum building in the world.[3]
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was an enormous disaster for the museum. The Roman, Egyptian and Asian galleries were destroyed, and three-quarters of the building was damaged beyond repair. The Oxford Assyriologist Archibald Sayce, recalling a visit to Stanford in 1917, wrote that "the rooms of its spacious Museum were still a scene of wreckage. The magnificent collection of Greek vases it once contained had been hopelessly shattered; even the Egyptian mummies were torn and dismembered."[3][4]: 84
The earthquake, along with the death of co-founder Jane Stanford the previous year, sharply curtailed the budget of the museum, which had no endowment. Faculty and administration had little interest in restoring the museum, and the building and its collection fell into disrepair. Curatorial duties ceased.[3]

The Thinker by Rodin in the rotunda of the new wing.
In 1917 Pedro Joseph de Lemos resigned as head of the San Francisco Art Institute to teach at Stanford, where he also served as Curator and Director of the Stanford University Museum and the Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery until 1945.[5] He reorganized the museum and began a regular series of exhibitions at both venues. But during this period the art collection was decimated by loss, sales, and gifts, and the poorly secured storage area became a quarry for local collectors and dealers. In 1945, after de Lemos' departure, the museum was officially closed in order to conduct an inventory of the art holdings.[3]
The university's art department saw the inventory as an opportunity to divest the museum of works of art lacking aesthetic merit. An enormous accumulation of worthless material was disposed of, but so too were paintings and sculptures from the original Stanford family collection judged now to be of greater value than was believed in the 1950s, including works by Albert Bierstadt, William Bradford, Norton Bush, and Thomas Hill.[3][4]: 22
In 1953, the Committee for Art at Stanford was founded, with the intention of recruiting members and raising funds to reopen the museum, and in 1954, after nine years of stocktaking, the museum reopened.[3]

Athena, by 19th-century Italian sculptor Antonio Frilli, presides over the marble vestibule.
In 1963, as part of the university's revitalization of the humanities under Dean Robert R. Sears, Professor Lorenz Eitner was instated as chair of the department of art and architecture. Assisted by faculty, staff, and The Committee for Art, Eitner began to revive the museum. Over the next 25 years, galleries were gradually refurbished, collections were significantly strengthened, and a program of exhibitions, educational services, and publications was put in place. 1985 saw a major development when professor Albert Elsen worked with art collector B. Gerald Cantor and other donors to open the B. Gerald Cantor Rodin Sculpture Garden.[3]

Richard Olcott of Ennead Architects is the designer of the Anderson Collection at Stanford University; he and partner Timothy Hartung, with whom he recently completed Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall, lead the Ennead team.

The design for the Anderson Collection locates exhibition spaces on the second floor below an undulating ceiling. The gentle slope of the ceiling and the continuous translucent clerestory at the perimeter of the building bring diffused natural light into the galleries from above. A grand central staircase extends the gallery walls, allowing visitors to view art as they gradually ascend from the lobby to the main galleries above. Openings between the gallery walls provide views into the double height stair hall, which serves as a point of orientation for visitors circulating throughout the building. A primary goal of the design has been to translate and interpret the unique accessibility to the art as it has been exhibited throughout the Anderson’s home and offices and foster a similar powerfully direct and intimate experience. The gallery layout is conceived as one open room, freeing visitors from a prescribed sequence and promoting the exploration of individual interests.

The second floor gallery volume cantilevers over the first floor to create a modern interpretation of Stanford’s traditional pedestrian arcade, extending along the south side of the building towards an intended contemporary sculpture garden. The building program is positioned to activate the pedestrian walkway; large windows offer views into the library, gallery and academic spaces that fulfill the educational mission of the Anderson program to become a vital library and teaching space in addition to a gallery.

Internationally-acclaimed for powerful and sustainable building designs for cultural, educational, scientific and governmental institutions, Ennead Architects (formerly Polshek Partnership) has been a leader in the design world for decades.

In 1938, the auditorium of the Campbell Union High School was built, with Work Projects Administration funds and the design of William H. Weeks. It is now commonly known as the Heritage Theater. Over the course of its forty years as part of the school, it is estimated that 20,000 students performed there.
On August 1, 1985, after some negotiating, the city of Campbell purchased the campus, including the historic Heritage Theater, and it became the Campbell Community Center.
The Heritage Theater, formerly the high school's auditorium, was reopened as the Campbell Community Center after renovations in 2004. Many local performance groups, including high schools in the CUHSD, rent the Heritage for various noteworthy performances. The rest of the Community Center holds classes, and portions are available to be rented for various purposes, including large meeting halls, office space, and outdoor facilities.
The campus' three buildings, as the Campbell Union High School Historic District, were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. They are the only example of 1930s Works Progress Administration construction built in the Spanish Mission style.

We are changing the format of this monthly event for the duration of the pandemic. At your leisure — walk the outdoor grounds observing social distancing guidelines or find photos of the buildings, send your sketch and receive drawing tips from the architect, Sassan Pedramrazi.