University of Virginia Library

III. The New Buildings

At the session of the building committee held on the
18th of January, 1896, Stanford White, of the firm of
McKim, Mead, and White, of New York, an architect
of original genius, who occupied a very distinguished position
in his profession, was chosen to draw the plans for
the erection of the new group of buildings called for in
the scheme of the Board and Faculty. The selection of
so great an expert in his art was the most important of
all those practical acts, which, in the end, was to change
the catastrophe of the fire from the calamity which it
was supposed, at the time, to be, into the blessing which
it was to prove to be in reality. If the shade of Jefferson
could, at that hour, have found an earthly voice, it
would have uttered words of the utmost approval and
satisfaction.

The McDonalds, who had been temporarily employed
by the Faculty, and permanently accepted by the Board of
Visitors, as soon as they first convened, now terminated
their part in the work of restoration, and White was authorized
to take it up and push it to a finish.[6] He generously

agreed to deduct from the fee which he was to receive,
the amount which the University had contracted to
pay his predecessors. The report subsequently submitted
by him provided for the completion of the reconstruction
of the Rotunda; the early erection of an academic building,
a physical building, and a mechanical building; the
ultimate erection of buildings for the departments of law
and languages, of an infirmary or hospital, and, finally,
of a hall for the use of the Board of Visitors. Two additional
edifices of a general character were included in
the general scheme,—which was so arranged as to admit
of expansion as the needs of the institution should call
for it, and the increase in its funds should allow.

The most important of all the buildings from an architectural
point of view, was the Rotunda. The design for
its restoration required that the exterior lines of the destroyed
edifice should be exactly reproduced, with wings
attached to the north front to correspond precisely with

those which had been attached to the south front, before
the two had been blown up to arrest the progress of the
flames. These quadruple wings were to be united, on
both the western and the eastern side, by a colonnade,
which would be the means of extending an open terrace or
walkway, on perfectly square lines, around the whole of
the Rotunda, with intervening courts on two sides, to be
planted in shrubs and trees. The esplanade on the north
front, reached by a pair of steps descending from the
north portico, was to spread as far as the ramparts; and
from the ramparts, was to fall to the level of the ground
by a second pair of steps.

The plan for the interior of the Rotunda was not in harmony
with the original recommendation of the Faculty,
which had also received the approval of the Board,—instead
of that plan providing for the restoration of the two
floors which had been laid down when the edifice was first
built, it reduced the number to one. This one was to separate
the great library room,—which was to rise to the
ceiling of the dome,—from two large apartments in the
basement, suitable for use as reference or reading rooms.
In counseling the adoption of this nobler plan, the architect
was, in reality, following the original wish of Jefferson,
who had been only led to split up the area within the
Rotunda by the imperative need of obtaining space for
laboratories and lecture-halls.

In the scheme submitted by White, the academic building
was to be erected at the foot of the Lawn, with the
physical building on one side in front, and the mechanical
building on the other, each in general extension of the line
of pavilions and dormitories of either East or West
Lawn. The sites of these new structures were to be at a
level so much lower than the sites of the original ones,
that, looked at from the south front of the Rotunda, they

would present the aspect of buildings of one story only;
and while they would close the quadrangle, they would
not shut out the wide expanse of the southern sky. In
their architectual design and physical composition, they
were to be in the closest harmony with the existing group.

On March 20th, 1896, this comprehensive and exquisitely
artistic scheme was laid by Stanford White before
the building committee. That committee had undergone
some changes in its membership,—it now comprised
W. C. N. Randolph, the rector, Armistead C. Gordon,
Leigh R. Watts, and Daniel Harmon, of the Board, and
W. H. Echols and W. M. Thornton, of the Faculty.
The general plan was approved by the Visitors during the
same month. Plans in full detail were submitted to the
committee on April 16, and, with some modification, were
finally adopted. About two weeks subsequently (May 2,
1896), the contracts for the erection of the buildings were
given out. By October 8, 1897, the Restoration Fund,
amounting to $328,624.54, had been exhausted, and it
then became necessary to draw upon the Fayerweather
Fund by warrant to the extent of $29,992. In his report
for June, 1905, Colonel Thomas H. Carter, the proctor,
stated that the total cost of the improvements from 1895
to 1897 had reached the sum of $450,000. At this time,
the value of the entire group of the University's buildings,
with their complete equipment, was appraised in excess of
one million and a half dollars.

The popular impression of the practical value and the
artistic beauty of the new buildings was expressed in the
resolution which the Board of Visitors adopted in March,
1898, in appreciation of the University's indebtedness to
Stanford White. They paid a very just tribute "to his
unceasing labors, his unreserved devotion of his signal
ability to the accomplishment of the best and noblest results

for the University's buildings, which have greatly increased
the efficiency and attractiveness of the University,
and made it a more splendid monument of its great
founder, Thomas Jefferson."

At the hour of inauguration, the new edifices which
confronted the delighted eyes of the spectator were the
restored Rotunda, the academic building, the physical
building, and the mechanical building. The changes proposed
in the Faculty's plan for reconstructing the Rotunda
have already been specified; and these had been
carried out with the strictest fidelity. The old library-room
was, perhaps, the handsomest apartment in the
State; but the new, with its greater height of circular
wall and dome, was still more imposing in its spacious dignity.
Besides the area reserved on the floor for books,
there were three galleries for additional storage; and to
increased beauty there was thus joined augmented utility.
The promenade along the flat roofs of the front and rear
wings and the lateral colonnades,—which made up a
continuous terrace around the classical main building,—
constituted a new feature of the extraordinary architectural
setting of the University; and it also opened up over
the Lawn and the adjacent ground, east and north and
west, a view of the most beautiful landscape and groupings
of trees to be discovered within the bounds of the
academic village. The new buildings at the foot of the
Lawn occupied the three sides of a court that was three
hundred feet broad, and two hundred feet deep, from
north to south.

The public hall in the academic building, which was
very appropriately named in honor of Joseph C. Cabell,
was designed along the most practical lines. The entire
area of the great apartment was spacious enough to seat

fifteen hundred auditors. It was so partitioned that six
hundred could be accommodated below the pillared railing;
if the audience should number as many as one thousand,
it could still find room back of the railing and next
to the wall; and if it exceeded that number, the overflow
could be seated in the gallery. However small the audience,
it would always present an aspect of more or less
compactness by occupying the compartment or compartments
exactly suited to its size. In addition to the public
hall, the academic building contained at either end
an upper and lower lecture-room. The pediment was
adorned with a fine group by Zolnay. On the eastern
side of the court was situated the physical building, which
was erected principally by means of the generous donation
of Charles Broadway Rouss, of New York, a native
of Virginia; and on the western side, was the mechanical
building.

The address at the inauguration ceremony, which occurred
in June, 1898, was delivered by James C. Carter, a
member of the New York bar, and a lawyer of extraordinary
ability and culture. It was singularly weighty in
thought, philosophical in spirit, and choice in diction.
The poem composed by Armistead C. Gordon for the
same notable hour, which took as its text the Greek motto
engraved upon the façade of the academic building, Ye
Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Make You
Free, was, in loftiness of sentiment, beauty and dignity of
expression, and fervor of patriotism, entitled to rank
among the very finest occasional poems that have sprung
from the mind and heart of a Southern author. In the
vision of the poet, the alma mater, risen from the ashes
of her great catastrophe, and surrounded by the shining
host of her devoted sons, is

To many of the alumni, the destruction of the impressive
canvas, the School of Athens, which had adorned the
public hall in the Annex, and been associated in the minds
of all with the brilliant commencement scenes that had
taken place there from session to session, during so many
years, was one of the most melancholy losses caused by
the conflagration; and a popular desire soon sprang up
to acquire for the University another replica. It was
due to the generosity of an alumnus that this feeling,—
which had its root in so many vivid memories of student
life,—was ultimately gratified. A copy of the original
was painted in Rome by G. W. Breck, and in April, 1902,
was presented to the University authorities, and soon
thereafter permanently placed upon the north wall of
Cabell Hall.

Another landmark, the destruction of which was regretted,
although it had often been a target for the shots
of hilarious students, was the college clock. This had
been consumed along with the other contents of the Rotunda.
A substitute, modelled upon the latest scientific
appliances, was given by Jefferson M. Levy, the owner of
Monticello. The system of this timepiece was so arranged
that all the clocks in the surrounding buildings,

—lecture-halls, and pavilions alike,—could be brought
on the same electrical current, and operated by the central
regulated mechanism.[7] There was another feature
of interest attached to this new clock,—the dial was
manufactured of a material so hard that it would resist
the impact of an ordinary bullet. The hands were
also protected from the force of the wind, and the oil
that lubricated the works, from the stiffening which formerly
always accompanied a very cold spell of weather.[8]

A new structure of large dimensions was the Randall
Hall. In June, 1898, the Board of Visitors received
a check for twenty thousand dollars from the trustees
of the J. W. and Belinda Randall Charities Corporation.
It was offered subject to the condition that it
should be either expended in the erection of a building to
be known by the name of the donors, or should be reserved
as a permanent fund for the establishment of
scholarships, or for such other uses as might be preferred
by the University authorities. A spacious building containing
forty-three dormitories was the form which the
gift ultimately assumed. Another gift of high utility
received at this time was the sum of ten thousand dollars,
which Mrs. Frances Branch Scott, of Richmond, presented
as a memorial of her son, John Scott, an alumnus.
This money was expended,—partly in equipping, and
partly in maintaining, a laboratory of electrical engineering.
By 1900, the General Assembly had appropriated

a large amount for erecting a thoroughly modern plant
for heating and lighting the premises of the University.
Major Green Peyton, who, as proctor, had, during thirty
sessions, successfully managed the financial affairs of the
institution in a period of extraordinary perplexity on account
of the South's impoverishment, died in 1897, and
was succeeded by Colonel Thomas H. Carter, one of the
most expert artillery officers of the Army of Northern
Virginia, and, during many years, associated, as commissioner,
with the railways of the South.