Stanford Memorial Church - Architecture - Interior

Interior

Jane Stanford has been described as having a "Victorian aversion to blank space" and so created a church that is "a dimly lit cavern of glowing mosaic surfaces ... and vibrant, stained-glass windows". The church is richly decorated throughout, its architectural features carved with formalized foliate ornament, and the walls adorned with mosaics in the Byzantine manner. The stained-glass windows were crafted by J. and R. Lamb of New York. The chandeliers, installed in 1915, are in the Art Nouveau tradition and have gold decorative patterns cast in pot metal.

The church is entered through three bronze doors adorned with angels, a recurring motif throughout the church. The doors open up into a narthex or vestibule decorated with mosaics on the walls and stone carvings on the architectural details. There is a variety of styles and motifs reflecting the hands of different craftsmen. The mosaic that adorns the floor depicts the Lamb of God surrounded by the symbols of the four gospel writers: St. Matthew (the winged angel), St. Mark (the winged lion), St. Luke (the ox), and St. John (the eagle). These symbols also appear in other areas of the church. A Celtic cross adorns the central wooden door that leads into the nave, and Latin epigraphs have been engraved above the two side doors.

Above the narthex is an organ gallery. The nave is arcaded and has a single aisle on each side with clerestory windows above. The exposed timber ceiling was inspired by Trinity Church and is constructed with tied hammer beams, which can be seen radiating in the chancel. The floor of the church slopes downward towards the crossing. The chancel and transepts are three semi-circular apses. They are separated from the broad central space by large semi-circular arches on stout columns with carved capitals. The transept apses each have a balcony with a concave balustrade.

Directly above the crossing is a dome supported on pendentives. Around the base of the dome are decorative gilt bands, the lower depicting a scrolling vine. Jane Stanford intended the dome's decoration of to be of mosaic tiles showing a variety of symbols, but the church's builders thought it would make the dome too heavy, so the decorations were painted. On the spandrels of the pendentives are mosaics of four angels measuring 42 feet (13 m) from wing tip to wing tip, rising from clouds. The angels survived the 1906 earthquake, but the angel looking downward was severely damaged during the 1989 earthquake because an 8-foot section of its left wing fell 70 feet (21 m).

The chancel, according to Hall, contains "artistic work of a kind seldom seen anywhere". The raised tiled floor of the chancel curves outward into the body of the church, and is approached by seven marble steps. The sanctuary is raised further, and enclosed by a marble altar rail behind which is an altar carved from white Carrara marble by L.M. Avenali. The altar supports a "simple unadorned brass cross that reflects the colors of the mosaics surrounding it." The cross was made by William van Erp and was dedicated to the memory of Jane Stanford in 1948.

Behind the altar is a mosaic reproduction of Roselli's "Last Supper". Around the lower walls of the chancel are twelve niches decorated with golden mosaic tiles. They hold candles, but originally held statues of the twelve apostles, destroyed in 1906 and were never replaced. According to local legend, the cherubim carved in stone above the golden niches and in the pillars' capitals are illustrations of children living on campus at the time of the church's construction. To the west side of the chancel stands brass lectern in the form of a reading angel, which Jane Stanford brought from Europe and dedicated to her husband on the anniversary of his birth in 1902.

Three stained glass windows in the apse depict the nativity, crucifixion, and ascension of Christ. The mosaics between them show angels, those on the left carrying a cross, those on the right carrying a crown. On the longer sections of the chancel wall, on either side of the windows, are mosaics depicting a choir of angels. Above them is a tier of mosaics with representations of the prophets and kings of Israel. Other mosaics abound in the transepts, clerestory, and the choir loft at the northern end of the church. A series of mosaics in the upper transepts depict Old Testament figures on the east side and Christian saints on the west side. On Jane Stanford's direction, they alternate male and female.

The arches, balcony rails, and pillars throughout the church have relief carvings created by a team of 10 men who worked for two years from scaffolding. A large double pillar before the entrance of the west transept have inscriptions dedicated to members of the Stanford family. After the 1989 earthquake, a third of the west transept was converted into a small chapel. The altar and chairs in this chapel were designed by Bay Area artist Gail Fredell who decorated the chapel's altar by using Salvatti's original mosaics, which had been stored since the church's reconstruction following the 1906 earthquake.