Ben Franklin and Johannes Gutenberg have returned to Stanford.
No longer boasting sufficient levels of health and vitality to do speaking tours or guest lectures, the famed printers have nevertheless arrived: New marble statues of the two now grace the front of Wallenberg Hall.
Not for the first time. The original Franklin and Gutenberg statues—made of marble by renowned Florentine sculptor Antonio Frilli at the turn of the 20th century—were last seen on campus in 1949, during the renovation of Wallenberg for what was then the Law School.
And then they were gone.
Nobody is entirely sure how the statues disappeared, or what became of them. Stanford associate architect Sapna Marfatia speculates that they may have been removed for safekeeping during construction and were somehow lost at that point. About five years ago, the University put out calls in Stanford and Sandstone and Tile magazine seeking any information on the statues or their whereabouts.
It turned out that in 1960 the late Leo Holub—then employed by Stanford as a graphic artist and later the founder of the art department's photography program—had stumbled upon a headless statue lying face down in a storage yard off Santa Teresa Street. Even minus the famous bifocals or Franklinian hairstyle, Holub thought the statue might be of the Founding Father and photographed it. When he returned to the site years later upon hearing of initial discussions to recreate the lost figures, the rest of Franklin's marble body had vanished, following his head into history.
About eight years ago, the University approached local sculptor Oleg Lobykin, who had worked on other campus projects. Lobykin confirmed that it would be feasible to recreate the statues, and preliminary planning began. According to Lobykin, work officially began about two years ago when funding became available.
Designs drew on archived photos of both the original statues and their counterparts on Jordan Hall, Louis Agassiz and Alexander von Humboldt. However, most of those photos were nearly a century old and the statues were only small parts of much larger photos. Details proved difficult to dial in on.
Still, Lobykin successfully completed the statues, and Franklin and Gutenberg—partnered in large part due to their respective contributions to the printing industry— were reinstalled atop Wallenberg in January.
"That was a very special project for me," Lobykin says. "It recreates the past, for the future."
Who said that printing couldn't make a comeback?
Ryan Eshoff is a student in the graduate program in journalism and a Stanford intern.
