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 ferry 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 is 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 older, 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.[39] 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 recommendation

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 Indigo 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." [40]

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,[41] 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 shutout the students from them except as social visitors. There seems, however, to have keen 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 afar greater scale iii 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." [42]

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.