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The campus's second student union was named for former Stanford President, Donald Tresidder (1894-1948). Tresidder, an M.D., served as Stanford's President between 1943-1948. He died prematurely at age 54 of heart failure in New York's Saint Regis Hotel.

The design of Tresidder Union, the center of student services on a sprawling and largely decentralized campus, retained a strong resemblance to the Stanford Book Store #2, across White Plaza. Both buildings had spreading horizontal proportions and utilized thick, reinforced concrete supports and shallowly-pitched hipped roofs, covered in Spanish red tile. A similar vocabulary can be found in Warnecke's Nathan Cummings Art Building (1964). A complex building meant to serve a variety of needs, some of its commercial spaces were closed off from their environs. In other areas, the union was designed to have an informal, residential feel, expressed particularly in its close connection of interior and exterior spaces. This bond was formed closely in its eating areas, with their walls of glass, leading to a large patio for al fresco dining. Typical of the informality of many institutional buildings in CA, the second floor had external corridors.

Tresidder Union has undergone periodic renovations over the years, particularly to its eating facilities and student recreational amenities. The original bowling alley was removed to create a personal computer lab in the 1980s, for example.

PCAD id: 7496