University of Virginia Library

V. New Buildings—The Annex

While these different measures for adding to the number
of dormitories, and furnishing their occupants with
an ample supply of water and light, were in the process
of accomplishment, the need of more lecture-rooms and
more laboratories had become more acute. It was said,
in 1849, that only the professors of natural philosophy
and chemistry possessed the exclusive right to the apartments

which they respectively used. The five schools of
ancient languages, modern languages, mathematics, moral
philosophy, and law were restricted to two lecture-halls
between them all. The large majority of the members
of the Faculty justly complained that the effectiveness of
their instruction, from day to day, was sensibly diminished
by this condition, which they predicted would only grow
more serious as the tide of new students should continue
to rise. A committee, composed of Andrew Stevenson
and Thomas J. Randolph, was appointed in September,
1850, to contract for the erection of an edifice that would
supply all the additional facilities for lecture-rooms and
laboratories which were now so pressingly demanded;
and they were also authorized to engage the services
of a supervisory architect. A report went about that a
building for artistic purposes only was about to be constructed;
and that the University funds were to be lavished
in mere show. "Now, I suppose," wrote Stevenson
to Cabell, in a spirit of amiable raillery, "we shall
hear that we are erecting galleries for the exploitation of
paintings and statuary and the fine arts."

The architects chosen were Mills and Kenwick. At
the rector's request, Mills visited the University, and
the two, after inspecting the ground together, drafted a
plan, under the provisions of which a great wing was
to be thrown out from the north portico of the Rotunda.
The main portion of this edifice was to be one hundred
feet in length, and fifty-four in width. Its connection at
its southern end with the Rotunda was to be in the shape
of a porch thirty feet long, while at its northern end,
there was to be a second porch of the same dimensions.
The structure, including the two porches, was to spread
out one hundred and sixty feet. The basement, and also
the first and third floors, were to be occupied by several

lecture rooms of the average size, and by one large apartment,
in addition, for the storage of the costly apparatus
belonging to the School of Natural Philosophy. The
second floor was to be reserved for a public hall, with
the capacity to seat twelve hundred persons.

At the time when the Annex was projected, the rear
of the Rotunda consisted of a porch approached on
either hand by a long flight of stone steps. The ground
back of this porch fell away abruptly; and on the face of
the bank thus created, there grew a waving mass of Scotch
broom. The porch was pulled down for the erection of
the south portico. It was not intended that the north
portico should be accessible from without; indeed, it was
Stevenson's expectation that a statue of Jefferson would
be eventually set up on this portico, as the view from its
edge was an open one in every direction, and as a bronze
figure so placed would be a conspicuous and imposing object
from all sides. Since the Annex, regarded as a
whole, was acknowledged by its projectors to be out of
harmony with the style of the other buildings, this terminal
portico, with its pillars, was a conscious attempt
to recover something of the lost architectural effect.

Mr. Randolph, loyal to the artistic spirit of his grandfather,
disapproved of the addition in the ugly and incongruous
form adopted; and he was also far-sighted
enough to perceive the increased danger of fire which this
large building would create, and which, in time, was to
be realized in a conflagration that threatened to consume
every structure on the grounds. But the desire to economize
in space overruled all aesthetic suggestions.
Within the area of the proposed edifice, ten thousand
square feet would be available for lecture-halls, and eight
thousand for exhibition-rooms. Five hundred feet were
to be reserved for a museum. The entire space open to

use would amount to as much as 25,500 square feet.
This did not take in the area embraced in the terraces,
galleries, and colonnade. The successful bidder for the
erection of the Annex was a builder named Hudson; and
George Spooner was appointed to overlook the successive
stages of the work.

How was the money required for meeting the expense
of constructing this new edifice obtained? The contract
provided that the first payment of ten thousand dollars
should be made in January, 1852, and the second, which
was to be twenty thousand dollars in amount, in January,
1853. By the act of March 7, 1827, the University had
been empowered to borrow, with the Assembly's approval,
and the Board now petitioned that body for the right to
negotiate a specific loan of twenty-five thousand dollars.
This was granted in February, 1852. Mr. Mills, the
architect, it seems, had estimated the cost of the building
at too low a figure; and after twenty thousand dollars
had been paid to the contractor,—which was done previous
to May, 1852,—it was found that at least fifteen
thousand more would be needed. When the Board convened
in June, 1852, the progress of construction had
reached such a stage that it was anticipated that the
Annex would be finished before their next annual meeting,
and they, therefore, assigned one of the basement
rooms to the School of Chemistry, another to the School
of Materia Medica, and a third to the School of Natural
Philosophy. The distribution of the remainder was
left to the decision of the executive committee. The
building had not been fully completed as late as September
1, 1853, although the public hall seems to have
been thrown open for the exercises in the preceding July.

In 1859, Mr. Pratt, the superintendent of grounds and
buildings, suggested that two wings should be joined on

to the Annex, each of which should be a precise pattern in
style, though apparently not in size, of the Annex itself.
There were to be the like porticos at the point of union
and at the point of termination. If it had been practicable
to enhance the incongruous ugliness of the Annex in
an architectural way, this scheme would undoubtedly
have accomplished it; but happily for the peace of Jefferson's
artistic ghost, it was not carried out, although it
was seriously debated by the Faculty, who, notwithstanding
the fact that classes assembled in the medical hall,
a separate structure, seemed to find it quite hard to realize
that academic and law lectures could be delivered under
any other roof than one which either covered the
Rotunda, or ran off from its walls. Had these two wings
been erected, the bulky cluster of buildings which they, together
with the Rotunda and Annex, would have made
up, would have raised such an enormous conflagration
when the great fire broke out in October, 1895, that very
probably no human power could have barred the spread
of the devouring flames to pavilions and dormitories.

At least one alumnus thought that, before the public
hall was thrown open, this large apartment should be
adorned with choice paintings and statuary. Thomas H.
Ellis, a devoted son of the institution, and a man of cultivated
tastes, both literary and artistic, seems to have
been the first to propose this use of the vacant walls. In
a letter to Gessner Harrison, dated October, 1850, he
announced that Daniel H. London, a merchant of Richmond,
who had recently been visiting Rome, had reported
that a copy of Raphael's School of Athens could
be procured for the University at a cost of two thousand
dollars. A committee of the alumni, said Ellis, was
ready to canvas for the necessary subscriptions for the
purchase, should the University be willing to accept the

picture. Harrison, who was now the chairman of the
Faculty, replied favorably, but he suggested that the
painting should be placed in the library, an apartment
not suited to it either in light or shape, as he himself
candidly admitted. Why not erect instead a statue to
Jefferson, to be set in the north portico? This, he
thought, would be more appropriate than a picture even
of the highest merit; but Ellis dissented from this view;
and about two weeks after receiving Harrison's letter,
he wrote to Cabell to express again the opinion that the
only harmonious place for the painting was in the public
hall. He urged that the architect of the Annex should
be instructed to arrange in one room at least for the display
of works of art. Cabell sent this letter to the
building committee, and at the same time, wrote to Ellis
that space for the proposed picture could be easily found
between the windows on either side of the public hall.

It was not until February 12, 1857, that the gift of
the copy of Raphael's painting from the brush of Paul
Balze was actually made to the Visitors and accepted by
them. To Mr. Pratt, the superintendent, was left the
choice of a place for its setting in the public hall; and it
was due to his correct judgment that the wall back of the
platform was selected,—the only spot where it could be
easily seen from all parts of the room, and where it
could be conspicuously lighted up by the chandelier overhead
on the night of commencement. It was hoped
that the canvas of the School of Athens would, as time
passed, become the nucleus of a large gallery of paintings,
which would represent the principal scenes in Virginian
history, such as Henry addressing the convention
that ratified the State constitution, James Madison reading
the resolutions of 1798 to the General Assembly, and

Thomas Jefferson looking on at the buildings of the University
as they were rising from their foundations.

The only other edifice of consequence constructed on
the University grounds in the course of the Fifth Period,
1842–1861, was the Temperance Hall. In June, 1852,
the Faculty were authorized to receive private subscriptions
for its erection,—this fund to be held by the Board
of Visitors as trustees,—while it was left to the executive
committee to choose the exact site for the projected
building. An address soliciting contributions was issued
in 1853 by members of University Division, No. 74, Sons
of Temperance, who had been long cramped by the narrowness
of their quarters. The amount of the rent paid
by the Division was also a charge that subjected the organization
to constant straits. It was estimated that a
modest building sufficient for all purposes could be erected
for fifteen hundred dollars. The excavation began in
1855, with a guarantee for the sum required signed by
R. R. Prentis, William Wertenbaker, Thomas J. Wertenbaker,
John B. Minor and John H. Cocke. The
builder was George H. Spooner, who had been so long
associated with the University.