University of Virginia Library

XII. Plan for the Buildings

But a far more important transaction of the Board at this meeting was the adoption of Jefferson's plan for the buildings. This plan, it seems, had been carefully

thought out by him many years before.[28] We learn from a letter which he wrote the architect, Latrobe, in I817, that he had formed his general idea of an academic village about fifteen years before, in response to a request from Littleton Waller Tazewell, at that time a member of the General Assembly, which was then disposed to consider the founding of a university for the State. It was this plan which he had submitted to the trustees of East Tennessee College in I8I0, when they had asked of him an appropriate design for that institution; he had then described it as follows: "a small and separate lodge for each professorship, with only a hall below for his class, and two chambers above for himself; these lodges to be joined by barracks for a certain portion of the students, opening into a covered way to give a dry communication between all the parts, the whole of these arranged around an open square of grass and trees."

The same plan, -except that one side was left open, -was submitted to the trustees of Albemarle Academy and accepted by them. The exact description of it as adopted by the Board of Visitors of Central College was in these words: "a distinct pavilion or building for each separate professorship; these to be arranged around a square; each pavilion to contain a school-room and two

apartments for the accommodation of the professor's family, and other reasonable conveniences." It will be perceived that there was, in this curt statement, no reference at all to a Rotunda on the north line of the square; indeed, the original scheme called for no difference whatever between that line and the other lines in the general character of its buildings.

In drafting this first plan of his academical village, which was to contain pavilions on each closed side of the square, with dormitories between, -there were two practical advantages that Jefferson kept clearly and constantly before him. The foremost was that this arrangement would sensibly diminish the possibility of serious loss by fire. Had the dormitories and the professors' apartments been crowded into one large building, there would have been a perpetual hazard of the structure being burnt up as a whole; this fate did overtake the central building of the University of Missouri in 1893; and, in 1895, it also befell the Rotunda and its annex at the University of Virginia itself. In the time of Jefferson, there was less facility for smothering an incipient conflagration, and the danger of one was then far more justly alarming because of its certain fatal consequences, should it occur. But the second and most influential reason in Jefferson's mind for the academic village was the ability, which this plan created to prolong the east and west lines of the square indefinitely. He was forced to consider the economic aspects of the situation primarily from the point of view of the cost of supplementary buildings. The scheme of a square open at its southern end was nicely adapted to the financial condition of the College; one pavilion or two pavilions, ten dormitories or twenty, could, from year to year, or decade to decade, be added on to the east and west side, or to both sides, as the increase

in the number of students, in the course of time, should justify it. Suppose that, instead of this flexible arrangement, one large dormitory building had been erected. Did that allow in itself room for extension? Either an unsightly wing would have to be attached, or a second two-story barrack would have to be constructed, a combination that would hardly have conformed to those canons of taste which were sacred in Jefferson's eyes.[29]

With his acute sense of architectural beauty and his taste for building, his mind must have been elated by the prospects of gratifying both, which opened up to him when the Visitors of Central College, on May 5, 1817, recorded their approval of his noble plan and appointed Cocke and himself a committee with full authority, jointly or severally, to carry it out in detail. Not since the completion of Monticello had he possessed such an opportunity to show his extraordinary aptitude for architecture, without being trammeled by the intervention of others. In his designs for the Capitol at Richmond, and for public edifices in Washington and private residences in Virginia, there was always some one with the power to modify or push aside his recommendations. In this new field, he was quite as unhampered as he was in constructing his own home, for Cocke, his colleague on the building committee, while he did not, from a practical point of view, approve the plan in many particulars, never undertook to interfere or obstruct;[30] and this seems to have

been the attitude also of the Board of Visitors as a whole. All recognized with Madison that the whole scheme of the University belonged to Jefferson, and that his wishes in regard to it should govern their action without question or dispute.

Jefferson wrote to Cabell, his most sympathetic correspondent, that, in his judgment, a remarkable "material basis" for the University was necessary "for its intellectual superstructure." It will be recollected that he had once asserted that it was not more costly to build a beautiful house than to build an ugly one, and he tacitly refused to contract his general plan on the score of economy except to cake brick or stone as a substitute for marble, which alone was really in harmony with his splendid design. There was a time, even in the history of Central College, when he was harassed with the thought of his inability to secure the funds which he needed for his projected pavilions and dormitories, but this prospect never caused him to draw back to a commoner level. Indeed, his disposition, after the projection

of the first pavilion, the plainest of all, was to grow more ambitious in the character of his principal structures as a means of further enhancing the beauty of the whole group. That group, when finished, was, as we shall see, to be marked by great variety, not only in small details, but in general outlines; and it was in planning this variety that his architectural talents had found the widest scope for exercise and gratification. He did not disguise to himself the fact that this variety, by its striking combinations, would arouse the opposition of the ignorant and tasteless from its very novelty. "That the style and scale of the buildings," he remarked in one of his reports to the General Assembly, " should meet the approbation of every individual judgment was impossible from the various structure of various minds . . . . We owed the State to do, not what was to perish with ourselves, but what would remain and be preserved through other ages."

The question now offers itself: how far were the details of Jefferson's general plan altered by him at the suggestion of others after the Visitors had authorized the erection of the first pavilion? Up to that date, the scheme in its entirety appears to have been precisely the same as he had formed it in the beginning. So far as we now know, not even a hint had as yet been obtained from any one with any pretension to architectural training. The nearest models to his proposed group in existence were the cloistered retreats in Europe that had come down from the Middle Ages. These were distinguished for similar quadrangles and colonnades, with dormitories or cells opening into covered ways, which ran the whole length of the quadrangles. The real inspiration, however, as we shall see, sprang from another and more ancient source.

But that Jefferson received suggestions after May 5, 1817, when the first pavilion was determined upon, which were reflected in the final construction of some of the buildings, is now very clearly proven. Four days subsequent to the meeting of the Visitors, he wrote to William Thornton, the distinguished architect, whom he had known in Washington: "What we wish," he said, "is that these pavilions, as they will show themselves above the dormitories, shall be models of taste and good architecture, and of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the architectural lecturer. Will you set your imagination to work, and sketch some designs for us, no matter how loosely with the pen, without the trouble of referring to scale or rule, for we want nothing but the outline of the architecture, as the internal must be arranged according to local convenience? A few sketches, such as may not take you a minute, will greatly oblige us."

It is palpable that Jefferson was seeking, not formal designs that would materially alter the fundamental character of his whole scheme, but simply hints or sketches that would further enhance its beauty by variety. Two sketches seem to have been sent to him by Thornton, accompanied by suggestions, some of which were accepted and others ignored. Thornton, counseled that the front of the first pavilion should be supported by. arches next to the ground, with Doric columns above the arches; and this advice was adopted; but not so the advice given at the same time, that the lecture-room should he placed at the top of the house, and the height of the house increased,-changes which were recommended to be followed in .all the pavilions. Thornton, further thought that the roofs of the dormitories should be made to slope outward from a parapet, and that the arcades in front

should be supported, not with piers, but with columns, such as are now to be seen there. An equally important suggestion was that a single Corinthian pavilion should be built on the north line of the square, which would thus become the most conspicuous structure on the three closed sides of that square. Apparently, under Jefferson's original plan, more than one pavilion, with adjacent dormitories, had been designed to fill up the whole of this north line.

Jefferson was not satisfied with Thornton's aid alone, but also wrote to Latrobe, his associate in public building during his Presidency, and perhaps the most competent professional architect in the United States at this time. He gives him the same general description of his plan which he had given Thornton, but with several additional details; thus he mentions the width and depth of each pavilion; and furthermore, points out that there is to be a colonnade running the entire length of all the structures as high as the lower story of the principal ones. As in his letter to Thornton, so in this letter to Latrobe, he asks only for outlines, however loose or rough, of fronts; the interior arrangements, he repeats, will be governed by convenience alone. A few sketches only, he concludes, were desired. Latrobe was so much flattered and gratified by Jefferson's request for assistance, that, unlike Thornton, who replied rather promptly, he delayed his answer until June 17 in order to study the plan which had been submitted to him. So bulky were the drawings that he made in the course of this study that he did not venture to enclose them by mail. Jefferson was visiting his estate in Bedford county when Latrobe's letter reached Monticello; and it was not until July 16 that he acknowledged its arrival. "I did not mean to, give you this trouble," he wrote, " but since you have been so kind as to

take it, I shall turn it to good account. I am anxious to receive your first draft as soon as possible because we must immediately lay the first stone, as the first pavilion must be finished this fall."

The magnificent conception of placing a structure of the most imposing character in the middle of the north line had its origin, it would seem, with Latrobe. "The centre building," he wrote on July 24, "ought to exhibit in mass and detail as perfect a specimen of good architectural taste as can be devised." [31] Thornton, it will be recalled, had simply suggested that a single Corinthian pavilion should be erected there instead of the less imposing pavilions, with adjacent dormitories, which had been projected by Jefferson; who seems; however, to have been at once favorably impressed with Latrobe's nobler proposal: "We will leave the north side open," he replied on August 3, "so that, if the State should establish there the university they contemplate, they may fill it up with something of the grand kind." It was characteristic of his architectural taste that the "something" which he finally adopted was on the model of the Pantheon.

The original plan had provided only two rooms for the accommodation of each professor. It has been supposed that Jefferson, having in mind the early principle of the College of William and Mary, favored the employment of unmarried instructors alone, and, therefore, was only inclined to furnish bachelor quarters for each member of the teaching staff. The quick eye of Latrobe caught this defect in the plan at once, but Jefferson, in his reply, explained it away by pointing out that the back-side

of each pavilion was left without windows, in expectation of an addition of two or three apartments, should they be required for a man of family.

The roll of Latrobe's drawings arrived on October 6. Two more pavilions having been authorized by the Board, Jefferson, on the 14th, wrote to him, "We shall certainly select their fronts from these (drawings) . . . . Some of your fronts would require too great a width for us because, the aspects of our fronts being east arid west, we are obliged to give the largest dimensions to our flanks, which look north and south." The influence of Latrobe is distinctly reflected in pavilions III and V, and it possibly comes out also in several of the pavilions erected after the incorporation of the University; but this cannot be positively stated owing to the loss of the drawings. It is most strongly suspected in pavilion X, which closely follows III; and also in pavilion VIII. While both Thornton and himself left the stamp of their genius on some of the important details of the general design, -Latrobe especially, by his recommendation of pavilions at the angles and of a great dominating building at the central axis, perceptibly modified and improved it, -the credit of the general architectural conception of Central College belongs to Jefferson. His fundamental inspiration lay, not in the suggestions of contemporaries, valuable as they were, but in the monumental works of Greece and Rome as delineated in the plates of Palladio. This fact will disclose itself more clearly when we come to describe the progress of the whole design after Central College had been converted into the University of Virginia.