The distinctive Hoover Tower, a landmark on the Stanford University campus and part of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, is being recognized by the Art Deco Society of California (ADSC) with a 2004 Preservation Award. The award recognizes noteworthy preservation and restoration activities of buildings in California. In selecting recipients, ADSC considers the history, condition, and architectural style of the nominated buildings.
"Stanford deserves praise for maintaining the building in pristine condition," said Paula Trehearne, preservation director for ADSC. Maintenance and upkeep of older buildings is unusual, she noted, because it's expensive and difficult.
Hoover Tower, dedicated in 1941 to commemorate the university's fiftieth anniversary, houses the Hoover Institution Library, as well as the Herbert Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover exhibit rooms. Arthur Brown Jr., perhaps the most celebrated architect of his time, designed the tower. In addition, he designed many buildings in the Bay Area including Coit Tower and San Francisco City Hall; in Washington, D.C., he designed the War Memorial Veterans Building and the Federal Triangle Buildings.
The tower, measuring 285 feet, offers views of the surrounding area from its observation deck (open daily from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; closed during finals and academic breaks). Trehearne pointed out that the top of the tower was originally intended to be square but was changed to its present dome shape to accommodate its forty-eight-bell carillon.
The carillon, cast for the Belgian Pavilion at the 1939–40 World's Fair, remained in this country owing to the outbreak of World War II. Later, the Belgian-American Education Foundation acquired it and donated it to the Hoover Institution in appreciation of Herbert Hoover's famine relief efforts during and after World War I. The inscription on the largest bell reads "For Peace Alone Do I Ring."
The Art Deco Society of California honors the architectural and other aesthetic achievements of the period referred to as art deco, which covered the first half of the twentieth century, especially the decades of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s.
The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic public policy and international affairs, with an internationally renowned archives.
