I felt like I was in a Holy Place. I had never been in an architecturally significant structure. The first time I stepped into Stanford Universities’ Memorial Church as a young man it overwhelmed me. My senses couldn’t absorb it all initially. The space, the light, the sound. It was better than a Led Zeppelin Concert.
Stanford had a very early student worship service on Sunday mornings in the Church or, MemChu as we called it. It was early enough that only a handful of us showed up. I attended partly to worship and partly to get into the church.
Because I sometimes had the space to myself prior to the service and after, I began to absorb the architecture, the stained glass, the organ. It was amazing.
One of the things you do when you are young and have an environment like this to yourself is look at things from different angles. MemChu’s floorplan is in the form of a Cross. If you lay down on your back near the center of the actual crossing area and look up, you would see a shallow dome shaped structure in the ceiling. This is our 100 year old Christian mandala.
Steve Jurvetson took a nice photograph from the perspective I am describing. I have modified his image to emphasize only the mandala area and darkened the four pendentives that support the dome (Photo License at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
The basic structure of this mandala is composed of three concentric circles. The outer circle contains 12 Christian symbols. The middle circle is mainly decorative, and the center circle functions as a skylight.
Yes, it is a Christian mandala; it has a central focus point surrounded by Christian symbols that explain/enhance the understanding of the center.
Overall, I read the structure as a massive eye. The Eye of God. The white area in the center is the pupil. Instead of light entering the pupil, God, is represented as emitting light out of His pupil. His iris is the decorative middle ring.
The symbolism of the light emitting pupil calls to mind Jesus’ statement: “I am the light of the world.” It also calls to mind the New Jerusalem which is illuminated by the glory of God.
Imagine sitting down to worship in a pew which is located at the center of a large cross which is illuminated from above by light of God. It’s very cool.
In part 3B we look at the 12 symbols surrounding the iris area in the outer ring.