Experience
Venues & Facilities
Stanford’s inviting, state-of-the-art facilities enable and showcase artistic expression. Explore the landscape of the Arts District venues and arts spaces across campus to find your next creative experience.
Visual Art Spaces
1. Cantor Arts Center
An art museum featuring works from Europe to Asia to Africa to America, from ancient to contemporary. Docent tours, family programs, and lectures offered daily.
Free and open to the public
2. Anderson Collection at Stanford University
An art museum of modern and contemporary American works spanning Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figuration, Color Field Painting,
and more.
Free and open to the public
3. McMurtry Building for the Department of Art & Art History
A place where artists and scholars come together, creating new works of art, new documentary films, and important studies that search out the place and power of art today.
The Coulter Art Gallery is free and open to the public; Classrooms and studios are closed to the public.
4. Stanford Art Gallery
The Department of Art and Art History’s teaching gallery, featuring art by Stanford students, faculty, and guest artists.
Free and open to the public
5. Windover
A spiritual refuge named for the series of paintings by Nathan Oliveira that grace its walls. An environment for quiet reflection throughout the day for Stanford students, faculty, and staff that is meant to inspire and promote personal renewal.
Outdoor spaces, including the labyrinth, are free and open to the public all hours. Stanford ID card required for building access
Performance Venues
6. Bing Concert Hall
Home to Stanford Live, the Bing is an 842-seat, state-of-the-art venue that hosts a wide range of music, dance and theater year-round. Discounted tickets are available for Stanford students, faculty and staff.
Check the Stanford Live calendar and buy tickets at live.stanford.edu.
7. Frost Amphitheater
A 20-acre, tiered outdoor performance space that hosts a student music and arts festival, as well as other events. Frost will reopen in spring 2019 after an extensive renovation.
Check to see if there is an upcoming event at live.stanford.edu.
8. Memorial Auditorium
Stanford’s largest indoor performance space, featuring a proscenium stage, primarily used to present the university’s largest musicals, dance shows, and guest lectures.
Check to see if there is an upcoming performance at taps.stanford.edu.
9. Braun Music Center
Home to the Department of Music’s faculty and staff offices, classrooms, and practice rooms, as well as the Archive of Recorded Sound; the Music Library; Braun Rehearsal Hall; and Campbell Recital Hall, an intimate, 215-seat performance and lecture hall.
Check to see if there is an upcoming performance at music.stanford.edu.
10. Dinkelspiel Auditorium
A 710-seat performance and lecture hall serving the Department of Music and the rest of the university for large-scale performances, lectures, symposia, and rehearsals.
Check to see if there is an upcoming performance at music.stanford.edu.
11. Roble Gym
Home to the Department of Theater and Performance Studies, Roble Studio Theater, Roble Dance Studio, classroom and rehearsal spaces, and the new Arts Gym, a flexible rehearsal and art-making space for students.
Check to see if there is an upcoming performance at taps.stanford.edu.
12. The Knoll
Home to the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), including a large space with multichannel sound for teaching, concerts, and acoustic experimentation; studios; and prototyping facilities for music production and related research.
Check to see if there is an upcoming performance at ccrma.stanford.edu.
Other Arts Facilities
Harmony House (Institute for Diversity in the Arts)
The Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA) + Committee on Black Performing Arts (CBPA) is a program in the arts that involves students and communities in the study of culture, identity, and diversity in and through artistic expression. Our mission is to create, support, and advance powerful, collaborative, and transformative arts practice and arts leadership in service of equity and justice.
Institute for Diversity in the Arts Website
Memorial Church
Memorial Church stands at the center of the campus on the Quad, and is the university’s architectural crown jewel. It was one of the earliest, and is still among the most prominent, interdenominational churches in the West. Jane Stanford built the church as a memorial to her husband, Leland. It is home to many of the Department of Music’s ensembles including the Stanford Chamber Chorale, Stanford Symphonic Chorus and Stanford University Singers. Memorial Church is also a venue for many other groups and events throughout the year.
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.School)
In May 2010, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, more commonly known as the d.School, opened the doors to its new home in Building 550. The building serves as a permanent home for the d.School students and faculty.
White Plaza Stage
During the 2008 renovation of White Plaza, a large outdoor stage was created adjacent to Dinkelspiel Auditorium. The stage has been used for outdoor concerts, performances, and the annual student-run Arts + Sustainability Festival in the spring.
Studio 2
Stanford students make a place for making art at Jasper Ridge. Studio 2 is an eco, micro, mobile art space for the street or the foothills.
Nitery Theater
The Nitery black-box theater was recently upgraded as part of the renovation of Old Union, completed in 2007. The space has flexible seating capacity of up to 85 and can adapt to a wide range of seating and staging formats. This fully-equipped space is primarily used for directing workshops and student theater productions.
Stanford Ceramics Studio
Stanford’s new Ceramics Studio opened its doors in October 2008 to an enthusiastic student body. Created with the financial support of the Steven Denning and Roberta Bowman Denning Fund, the studio is a completely student-run facility and offers quarterly memberships, classes, and workshops for Stanford students.
Explore Stanford Universities public artwork through the mobile app!
