University of Virginia Library

Latrobe is Enlisted

William Thornton was not the only architect offering advice to Jefferson in the early stages
of building. On 12 June Jefferson sent a letter to Benjamin Henry Latrobe that was nearly
identical to the one he sent to Thornton in May. Latrobe did not reply until late June but
when he did it was readily apparent that he had far exceeded Jefferson's request to make a
"few sketches such as shall take you not more than a minute apiece, mere impressions of a
first trait of imagination."[45] Latrobe insisted that he had "found so much pleasure in
studying the plan of your College, that the drawings have grown into a large bulk that can
conveniently be sent by the Mail. . . . I have put the whole upon one very large sheet, which
I am very unwilling to double."[46] Jefferson eagerly awaited Latrobe's designs, and wrote
him in the first week of July:

Latrobe suggested one variation from Jefferson's plan that coincided with a change in the
design that Jefferson himself had contemplated only since writing Latrobe in June, that of
closing off the north end of the square with "some principal building." This alteration in
Jefferson's conception of his architectural scheme, and its subsequent change in the
appearance of the square, Jefferson later told Latrobe, was necessary because of "the law of
the ground."[48] Instead of building pavilions on the closed side of the square that resembled
those of the open east and west sides, Latrobe suggested closing the square's north end with
a grand central building, something architecturally magnificent. Jefferson agreed and wasted
no time in sensing the beauty of Latrobe's suggestion to construct a spherical building
modeled after the "noblest surviving example" of ancient art, the Pantheon in Rome.[49]
Jefferson reduced the diameter of the Roman Pantheon by half, to 77 feet, causing its area to
drop to one-quarter and its total volume to one-eighth of the original. Inside it contained a
curious design, three oval shaped rooms and an irregular central hall inside a circle with
curving staircases leading up to a single large library room covered with a high domed
ceiling.[50] The gently terraced square that resulted from the "law of the ground" has on
either side between the pavilions an increasing number of dormitories as one moves south,
creating an illusion of perspective as one stands on either end. From the closed north end the
pavilions appear to be spaced evenly apart and from the south end looking northward one's
attention is forced toward the grand central building. The building proved functional if
novel; elegant and spacious, well proportioned, handsome, unique.[51]