|11/13/14

PALO ALTO, Calif. — The birthplace of Yahoo and Google, Stanford University is now ramping up and showing off its cultural resources.

Construction of a $235 million arts district near Palm Drive, the grand tree-lined campus entrance, is well underway here. Last year, the $112 million Bing Concert Hall opened. This year came the $36 million Anderson Collection, a new American-art museum designed to showcase paintings by Pollock, Rothko and Diebenkorn. Next up is the $87 million McMurtry Building for the art and art history department, to open in 2015. The first two buildings were designed by Ennead Architects; the McMurtry is by Diller Scofidio & Renfro.

“I think it’s very important, as the university gains in reputation in fields associated with Silicon Valley, that we send the signal that art matters, even to students who go on to work in the valley or business,” said Matthew Tiews, the executive director of art programs at Stanford.

John Hennessy, president of Stanford, originally identified the arts as one of five growth areas for a capital campaign that ran from 2006 to 2011. Student interest was a factor. The McMurtry will include art studios, while outside the district, a $28 million renovation of Roble Gym into an “art gym” will add rehearsal and performance space. Before the Bing, students complained about the bad acoustics of an auditorium serving as an ad hoc concert hall.

Mr. Hennessy’s initiative raised nearly $160 million from donors for new buildings. The university contributed roughly another $100 million, he said, primarily from discretionary presidential funds and Google patent revenue streams. Mr. Hennessy also had a key role in securing the gift of the Anderson Collection from Harry and Mary Margaret Anderson (known as Hunk and Moo): 121 paintings and sculptures, including gems of Bay Area figuration and New York School abstraction, led by Pollock’s drip painting “Lucifer.”

The couple offered their trove with one big string attached: They wanted to see it shown together in its own museum space, and Mr. Hennessy (unlike the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a previous recipient of Anderson donations) agreed to fund a new building.

“It’s important work, and it’s our legacy,” Mr. Anderson, 92, said.

Mr. Hennessy and his team decided not to charge admission. “We wanted to send a message about art accessibility,” he said. The university has instituted a requirement of all undergraduates known as “creative expression”; qualifying courses include Aesthetics of Data (music), Visual Thinking (mechanical engineering) and Cellphone Photography (art).

Opening events at the Anderson have drawn crowds to its concrete building and its airy galleries. One back-to-school arts party — “the largest event here outside of a football stadium,” Mr. Hennessy said — drew 2,500 students.

But just which students will benefit most from the new arts resources is still to be seen. Mr. Hennessy, who made his name in computer science, said he never took a studio art or art history course in college but has received an education of sorts from his wife, Andrea, a ceramist.

Mrs. Anderson, 88, said she sat in on one art history course in college, but not for long. “I tried it for two weeks, and I didn’t like it, so I quit,” she said.