California
White Memorial Fountain at Stanford University
February 2017
The 16-foot (4.9-meter) White Memorial Fountain stands in Stanford University’s White Plaza, between Old Union and the Stanford Bookstore. Sculptor Aristides “Aris” Demetrios designed and fabricated the welded bronze-and-copper work after winning a national sculpture competition in 1963. The fountain was installed in 1964 and became widely known on campus as “The Claw.”
Raymond B. White and his wife commissioned the fountain and plaza in memory of their sons, William N. White and John B. White II. Both brothers died in separate accidents before they could graduate with Stanford’s Class of 1949. Demetrios described the transition from solid bronze to shifting patterns of water as a metaphor for the futures the young men did not live to realize.
The fountain also became part of Stanford’s annual Big Game traditions. Before the football game against the University of California, Berkeley, the Stanford Band and Axe Committee hold the “Bearial,” a mock funeral in which a stuffed bear representing Berkeley mascot Oski is impaled at the top of The Claw. Demetrios returned to Stanford during the fountain’s 2010–2011 restoration to help adjust its water system.
