The Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory (HEPL) — where Nobel Laureate Robert Hofstadter measured the shapes of atomic nuclei and where the world’s first full-scale linear accelerator was produced — will be razed by the end of the month in order to make way for the second Science and Engineering Quad.

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John Shen

Demolition of the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, which will be completed by the end of the month, is underway.

University Architect David Lenox said the demolition of the HEPL building is consistent with the original campus plan developed in the University’s early years.

“The demolition of HEPL enables Stanford to create a Science and Engineering Quad that will become the catalyst to re-establishing the original Stanford campus plan envisioned by Frederick Law Olmsted,” Lenox said. “This new quad will not only encourage and celebrate multidisciplinary research and education, but also will provide that sense of place that is so important to the Stanford tradition.”

The Quad will be home to the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2), the School of Engineering Center, the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering Building.

HEPL and its researchers have already moved to new quarters in the Physics and Astrophysics building next door. Although they began moving into the new building over a year and a half ago, researchers said they will keep their former facility in their memory.

“It was a wonderful place to do research,” said Physics Prof. Blas Cabrera, current HEPL director. “No one cared about the architectural niceties, and we could modify and change the space depending on our research. The new building will be much more architecturally attractive.”

But Cabrera acknowledged that leaving the old building has its drawbacks.

“Being in the old building had its advantages,” he said. “Nobody cared if you punched a hole in the wall.”

Completed in the aftermath of World War II nearly sixty years ago, HEPL was made entirely of concrete and cinder block as a temporary building with science in mind.

“The building was very much built for a particular application, not for architectural niceness,” Cabrera said. “It was very much a research entity.”

“It is outdated, but in a nice way,” added Applied Physics Prof. Robert Byer, who served as director of HEPL from 1997 to 2006. “Now it’s in the wrong place late in its lifetime.”

Despite the banal architectural style, the building saw its share of Stanford history. In addition to housing the predecessor to the Stanford Linear Accelerator, the HEPL building also paved the way for government-sponsored research on campus by being the first building constructed specifically for that purpose in the aftermath of World War II.

“When the HEPL Building was completed in 1949, it was constructed almost as a temporary building because nobody knew whether this brand new thing — government-sponsored research — would last,” Byer said.

He added that the first medical use of radiation came out of HEPL. In the 1950s researchers were successful in treating cancer in a boy’s eye.

“This lab evolved,” Byer said, “and did what was at the frontier of science every step of the way.”