University of Virginia Library

V. Course of Construction

Although Central College had been raised to the platform
of a university, the general outline of the original
plan of building underwent but few alterations. Jefferson
had drafted that plan for a broad and populous
seat of learning, and now that this consummation of his
hopes was assured, he had but to push to a termination
what he had long ago conceived, and what he had already
substantially begun. The scheme of construction which
he submitted to the General Assembly in the Rockfish
Gap Report made no addition to the scheme in harmony
with which the carpenters and bricklayers were already
at work in the old Perry field: and in the letter written
by him to William C. Rives, only three days after the

University was incorporated, he simply canvasses the
ability of the Board of Visitors to provide during that
year for the building of two pavilions, with their dormitories,
besides those already in course of erection. It
it true that the Report referred specifically to an edifice
of large size "in the middle of the grounds," to be used
for certain purposes carefully enumerated, but, as we
have already pointed out, this structure, in the form now
known to us, had been suggested, in a general way, by
Latrobe, and accepted as a part of the plan.

The first and only really important modification that
was made in the setting was in April, 1820, when Jefferson,
confronted with the necessity of choosing the site
of the first hotel, decided that he would not place it on
an extension of the Lawn in alignment with the pavilions,
but instead would erect it on what was afterwards named
Western Back Street, now West Range. Thus began
the existing array of four instead of two parallel rows of
buildings. In the original draft, the distance from the
eastern line to the western was seven hundred and seventy-one
feet; but, in fixing the sites of the pavilions,
Jefferson contracted the interval. The addition of
hotels and dormitories, in the form of parallel East and
West Ranges, enabled him to return to the dimensions of
the original plat. He seems to have at first intended
that each of the lateral ranges should have its front in
precise correspondence with the front of that side of
the Lawn; and he was ingenious enough to devise a
scheme by which the denizens of these lateral ranges
could be prevented from peering from their front windows
into the ugly premises in the rear of the adjacent
parallel pavilions and dormitories. But the expense of
carrying this out was shown to be so great that he ultimately
determined to change the plan to the one afterwards

followed, in which the East and West Ranges,
facing outward, turn their back yards upon the back
yards of the Lawn. Another modification of the original
plan left the projected Rotunda with a lawn on
either side. These two small areas of open ground,
which, with the actual site of the Rotunda itself, had, in
Jefferson's earliest scheme, been reserved for pavilions
and dormitories, were, in the end, occupied by wings,
which, during many years, were in normal use as gymnasia.

Taking the noble group of buildings in the mass as
completed, they enable us to understand clearly Jefferson's
purpose of teaching the principles of architecture by
example in this new seat of culture. It will be recalled
that, in the Rockfish Gap Report, he had recommended
the study of the fine arts; but the General Assembly, in
the Act of Incorporation, had pointedly omitted that
theme in enumerating the courses of instruction. Jefferson
got around this tacit injunction by persuading the
Board of Visitors to enter military and naval architecture
among the subjects to be taught in the school of mathematics.
It was, however, in the peculiarities of the surrounding
buildings that the fundamental lessons of the art
were to be learned. "The introduction of chaste models,"
he wrote to William C. Rives, "taken from the
finest remains of antiquity, of the orders of architecture,
and of specimens of the choicest samples of each order,
was considered as a necessary foundation of the instruction
of the students in this art." And so highly did he
value this aspect of the University edifices that he urged
upon the same correspondent,—at this time a distinguished
member of Congress,—that the capitals and
bases recently arrived from Italy should be exempted
from custom duties because they were designed as much

for illustration as for practical use. With perfect propriety,
said he, these monuments might have been placed
"in our museum for an indefinite period." This was
not done, he added, "because we thought that, to show
their best effects, they would nowhere be exhibited so
advantageously as in connection with their columns and
the super-incumbent entablature. We, therefore, determined
that each of the pavilions ... should present
a distinct and different sample of the art. And these
buildings being arranged around three sides of a square,
the lecturer, in a circuit, attended by his school, could explain
to them successively these samples of the several
orders."

There was another practical reason which Jefferson
gave in justification of that splendid but costly architectural
scheme. It was his conviction that, without a "distinguished
scale in structure," to employ his own words,
foreign scholars of celebrity would hardly be willing to
accept chairs in so new an institution. This was a somewhat
fanciful notion, for certainly the only alien professors
who ever occupied those chairs apparently made no
inquiry at all as to the character of the University's
architecture, when they entered into their engagements.
The prestige of this seat of learning, in our own country,
was unquestionably enhanced from the start by its noble
physical setting, and this, perhaps, has had a calculable
influence in securing for it, throughout its history, the services
of the ablest and ripest American scholars.[5] It is
quite possible,—and it is no discredit to Jefferson to say
so,—that he would have followed the plan which he did
adopt even if there had been no practical recommendations

for it, such as he was led to bring forward to combat
the weight of the ignorant provincial criticisms leveled
at it. He himself had said that it was as inexpensive to
build a beautiful house as it was to build an ugly one.
Within the privacy of his own breast, he probably agreed
with good judges of subsequent generations in thinking
that the architectural charm of the University of Virginia,
like the immortal poet's thing of beauty, was a joy
forever in itself that called for no additional reason to
justify its existence.

The entire setting of the original group was classical
in its character. Beginning at the head of the West
Lawn, it will be found that Pavilion I was an adoption of
the Doric of the Diocletian Baths; Pavilion III, Corinthian
of Palladio; Pavilion V, Ionic of Palladio; Pavilion
VII, Doric of Palladio; and Pavilion IX, Ionic of the
Temple of Fortuna Virilis. Beginning again on the east,
side of the Lawn and descending from the north end, we
observe Pavilion II, Ionic, after the style of the same
temple; Pavilion IV, Doric of Albano; Pavilion VI,
Ionic of the Theatre of Marcellus; Pavilion VIII, Corinthian
of the Baths of Diocletian; Pavilion X, Doric
of the Theatre of Marcellus; and the Rotunda, after the
Pantheon at Rome.

Jefferson reduced, modified, and adapted to new purposes,
but still preserved with fidelity, the art of the originals,
both in their lines and in their proportions. His
inspiration, in general, was derived from Palladio, but
when his own judgment, in any instance, suggested a departure,
he did not shrink from following it, and in doing
so, exhibited always precision and certainty. Sometimes,
he preferred a simpler form, as in his copy of the pilasters
of the Temple of Nerva, because he thought that it was
"better suited to our plainer style." It has been said of

him, in his relation to the architecture of the University,
that, instead of working, like the disciples of Inigo Jones,
downward from Palladio to the debased Georgian imitations
of the classic, he worked upward from that great
artist to the purest and most refined types of the classic.
"He removed from the classic forms of the Cæsars," says
Dr. Lambeth, summing up his merits in this particular
in a remarkable phrase, "the architectural rubbish of the
centuries." His bent was towards the Roman classical,
when all or nearly all his contemporaries exhibited a
leaning towards the Georgian, Italian, Vitruvian, Gothic,
or Renaissance styles. In his report to the General Assembly
in November, 1821, he modestly declares that he
had no "supplementary guide but his own judgment";
and while he does not seem to have looked for even
grudging approval in the general public, yet some instances
of high and generous appreciation of the beauty
of his buildings soon came to his knowledge to gratify
him. John Tyler, the younger, being a citizen of the
Peninsula, and residing not far from the College of William
and Mary, had not been friendly to the University,
yet after inspecting the completed group, he was "so
much impressed with the extent and splendor of the establishment,"
according to Judge Semple, who reported his
words to Cabell, and Cabell to Jefferson, that he regretted
that he had not been a member of the last Assembly
to vote for the cancellation of its bonds.

The same feeling of admiration was aroused in other
men of culture who visited the spot at this time, although
the Rotunda, the most imposing of all the structures,
was not yet fully completed. Thus Garrett Minor, writing
to Cabell, in 1822, said, "I was much pleased and
delighted with the beauty, convenience, and splendor of
the establishment." The word "splendor," used both

by Tyler and Minor, expressed very pertinently the surprise
of Virginians of that day,—who had travelled little,
and had few very fine models of residential architecture
in their own State to educate their taste,—when they
viewed the classical buildings which Jefferson had caused
to rise in the shadow of Observatory Mountain. Ticknor
was perhaps a more competent judge, for he had
passed many years in Europe, had visited all its famous
capitals, and had examined all its edifices of celebrity.
He had thus become both fastidious and discriminating.
In 1824, he happened to be a guest at Monticello, and,
accompanied by his host, rode down to inspect the University
edifices. At this time, ten pavilions, with their dormitories,
and four hotels, with dormitories also attached,
had been finished; and the Rotunda too was so far completed
as to stand forward with a very noble aspect. In
a letter to W. H. Prescott, Ticknor described the group
"as a mass of buildings more beautiful than anything
architectural in New England, and more appropriate to
a university than are to be found, perhaps, in the world."
And it is the general opinion of more modern experts
in the art that this extreme statement of the accomplished
Bostonian was not exaggerated. "Although it cannot
be but regretted," remarked Stanford White, of our own
day, "that it was not possible to use marble where wood
and stucco painted white take its place, yet as the use of
marble was necessarily impossible, the mind, reverting to
the period when the buildings were erected, forgives the
homely substitute in delight at the charming result."
And on another occasion, he spoke of the physical setting
of the University of Virginia as the "most perfect and
exquisite group of collegiate buildings in the world." Dr.
Fiske Kimball, summing up the merits of the structures
in the mass, has characterized the whole as the "greatest
surviving masterpiece of the classic revival in America,
the most magnificent architectural creation of its day on
this side of the Atlantic."[6]

Even the persons who were most enthusiastic in commenting
on the extraordinary beauty of Jefferson's conception
as incorporated in the Lawn and Ranges, could
not blind themselves entirely to the inconveniences of
his plan, and particularly to those connected with the
dormitories. With doors facing either east or west, and
with one small window only breaking the back wall of
each room, there was little prospect of their catching the
southern breeze during the heats of early summer. The
burning rays of the declining sun struck the face of the
western arcade in June and September,[7] the closing and
opening months of the session, and the cold eastern winds
poured against the eastern arcade both in winter and
early spring alike. It was apprehended by some, at the
beginning, that the constant noise of tramping feet under
the cover of the arcades would disturb the students engaged
with their books in their several apartments. The
long, flat roofs of the Lawn, under the thawing of recurring
snows, soon developed a tendency to leak, while
smoking chimneys, within a short time, proved such an
annoyance to the professors that Bonnycastle wrote an
elaborate treatise to demonstrate how this irritating evil
could be remedied.

The lecture-hall reserved in each pavilion became almost
at once a source of perplexity; it was anticipated
that some members of the Faculty would draw classes too
small in size to occupy the whole of their several halls,
whilst others would be so popular in themselves or their

courses, that their halls would not, at any one time, furnish
seats for all their pupils. Naturally, these professors
would find the repetition of the same lecture on the
same day to the students who had been shut out highly
irksome; and the necessity of such repetition, should it
arise, was certain to throw the whole table of recitation
hours into confusion. Cabell, as early as April, 1819,
suggested that the Greek, Roman, and French model of
an oval room, with seats rising one above another, would
give a large area for use; but it was pointed out to him
that such a disposition of space would render the apartment
unserviceable to the professor and his family during
those hours when the lecture was not proceeding. There
was then left but one way of removing the difficulty,—
the enlargement of the lecture-room; but as that would
upset the plan which Jefferson had adopted, Breckinridge,
Cabell, and Cocke, who were impatient with the
existing defect, felt that they must not only act with
caution, but must also act together. "We should move
in concert," remarks Cabell in a letter to Cocke, "or we
shall perplex and disgust the old sachem." As the size
of the rooms was not altered, the old sachem, it is to be
inferred, remained obdurate to the proposal; indeed, to
make the change effective, the scheme of each pavilion
would have had to undergo a structural modification,
which would have added substantially to the already high
cost of building.

According to tradition, the purpose which Jefferson
had in view for these single ground-floor apartments
was blocked, not by formal resolution of the Board, but
by that more delicate and subtle instrument of change, a
woman's will. It is said that the wives of the professors,
finding that they needed the lecture-halls for reception
or dining-rooms, brought furtive conjugal influences to

bear that shut out the students from them except as social
visitors. There seems, however, to have been a more
practical reason for the change than this,—as we shall
see hereafter.

Not only was Jefferson the author of the common
plan for Central College, and its successor, the University
of Virginia, but, in spite of the burden of his increasing
years, he continued to act as the practical superintendent
of the building down to the completion of the
entire group of structures, with the exception of the Rotunda,
which, at his death, was still unfinished in some
details of importance. He was assisted in this supervision
by Cocke, and he possessed in the proctor, Arthur S.
Brockenbrough, a vigilant and well-informed agent; but
the bulk even of the specifications came from his brain
and pen. In the interval between February and October,
1819, he drafted the plans and wrote out the specifications
for five pavilions, with their adjacent dormitories,
and also for five hotels. In 1821, he drew up the plans
and specifications for the Rotunda. He was now in his
seventy-ninth year. After the celebration of his eightieth
birthday, he prepared the plans for an observatory and
an anatomical hall. The entire set of these original
plans, elevations, and specifications have been preserved,
but only a few of the working drawings for the guidance
of the builders have survived, since most of them were
destroyed in their necessarily rough use by the mechanics.
The knowledge which he had acquired of materials in
erecting the Monticello mansion was put to practical
service on a far greater scale in the construction of the
University buildings; he was now as able to test the
quality of brick, stone, mortar, and lumber, and to calculate
their value, as the most expert artisan on the ground,
while his taste in ornamentation was reflected in the

beautiful details which still adorn the interiors of the pavilions.

Under his watchful and experienced eye, the progress
of construction from the day that the Visitors of Central
College turned the property over to the Visitors of the
University was rapid and uninterrupted. The committee
of superintendence, Cocke and himself, had at first
contemplated the erection of a hotel, so as to open the
institution to students during the following winter, but,
as early as May 12 (1819), they had, with the Board's
approval, decided to finish the entire group of buildings
before taking this final step. Workingmen were soon
engaged in digging the foundations for the two additional
pavilions and their dormitories, which had been authorized
in anticipation of the payment of the annuity of the
ensuing year. We obtain a glimpse of the busy scene on
the University grounds in August (1819) from a letter
written by George W. Spooner, who represented the
proctor in the work out of doors during his absence in
Richmond. "Mr. Phillips," he says, "has commenced
to lay in bricks, and has the basement story (of one of the
new pavilions) nearly up. Mr. Ware's foundation will
be ready in a few days, but he is not yet ready for laying,
not having burnt any of his bricks yet. Mr. Perry will
begin as soon as they have succeeded in blasting a rock
which has impeded their progress in digging his foundation.
The two Italians are going on quite leisurely.
They have cut three bases and one Corinthian cap. The
two from Philadelphia I went out to the quarries to see.
They appear to go on quite slowly, owing to the difficulty
of quarrying the very hard rock. Mr. Dinsmore is puting
up modillions in the cornice of his pavilion. Mr.
Oldham is making his frame."[8]

By December 17 (1819), the brickwork of the five
pavilions, with their respective dormitories, situated on
West Lawn, had been completed, whilst the rafters of the
roofs of two pavilions situated on East Lawn were in the
course of being adjusted. By November 21, 1821, six pavilions,
eighty-two dormitories, and two hotels, were in
condition for immediate occupation; and by October 7,
1822, ten pavilions, one hundred and nine dormitories, and
six hotels. Only a small amount of plastering remained
to be finished. The gardens had not been entirely laid off,
nor the serpentine walls, designed to bar them against intrusion,
erected. A few capitals also had not as yet arrived
from Italy. By October 6, 1823, all these deficiencies
had been supplied. But the Rotunda had still
to be carried through the last stage of construction.