JEFFERSON, Thomas

As a founding father of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was passionate about North America’s independence from Britain. He was no fan of the king of England and, by extension, no fan of the Georgian architecture that bore the kings’ name.

So when the state of Virginia needed a new government building, Jefferson – a self-taught architect and former governor of that state – took his inspiration from a source very far removed, geographically and historically, from the British colonial architecture of the day. The Maison Carr�e in Nimes, France provided the decisive inspiration for the federal seat of government. Jefferson studied devotedly this Roman podium temple during his stay in France. Together with the French architect Charles Louis Cl�risseau he elevated this Roman temple into the ideal of a new American architecture.

The building was defined by a monumental portico in the delicate Ionic order expressed in the arrangement of pilasters which wound around the entire building. A powerful pedestal and a harmoniously composed triangular pediment provided the necessary distancing effect and urban accent.

During the Civil War, Richmond served as the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and the Virginia State Capitol building housed both the State assembly and the Confederate government.

Jefferson’s major work was the founding and planning of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. It is one of the earliest examples of a “campus university,” in which buildings are loosely grouped in a pavilion system and integrated into the surrounding landscape. The precursors for this concept, which replaced the self-contained, monastic type of college building, can be found in Cambridge, England.

Jefferson successfully managed to redefine a centuries-old building type, while allowing the full spectrum of Classical architecture to emerge anew: the heart and high point of this “academic village” is the rotunda, which accommodates the library and the country’s first observatory. Around it, organized by colonnades, are grouped two rows of five pavilions each, which house the various academic disciples Their architecture is intended to replicate a stroll through ancient Rome; quotes from the Pantheon, the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, and the baths of Diocletian combine with Neoclassical interpretations of the antique.

Jefferson successfully managed to redefine a centuries-old building type, while allowing the full spectrum of Classical architecture to emerge anew: the heart and high point of this “academic village” is the rotunda, which accommodates the library and the country’s first observatory.

The whole example of the “academic village” is bound by spacious green areas, which reinforces the impression of an Arcadia of learning.

As a founding father of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was passionate about North America’s independence from Britain. He was no fan of the king of England and, by extension, no fan of the Georgian architecture that bore the kings’ name.

So when the state of Virginia needed a new government building, Jefferson – a self-taught architect and former governor of that state – took his inspiration from a source very far removed, geographically and historically, from the British colonial architecture of the day. The Maison Carr�e in Nimes, France provided the decisive inspiration for the federal seat of government. Jefferson studied devotedly this Roman podium temple during his stay in France. Together with the French architect Charles Louis Cl�risseau he elevated this Roman temple into the ideal of a new American architecture.

The building was defined by a monumental portico in the delicate Ionic order expressed in the arrangement of pilasters which wound around the entire building. A powerful pedestal and a harmoniously composed triangular pediment provided the necessary distancing effect and urban accent.

During the Civil War, Richmond served as the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and the Virginia State Capitol building housed both the State assembly and the Confederate government.

As a founding father of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was passionate about North America’s independence from Britain. He was no fan of the king of England and, by extension, no fan of the Georgian architecture that bore the kings’ name.

So when the state of Virginia needed a new government building, Jefferson – a self-taught architect and former governor of that state – took his inspiration from a source very far removed, geographically and historically, from the British colonial architecture of the day. The Maison Carr�e in Nimes, France provided the decisive inspiration for the federal seat of government. Jefferson studied devotedly this Roman podium temple during his stay in France. Together with the French architect Charles Louis Cl�risseau he elevated this Roman temple into the ideal of a new American architecture.

The building was defined by a monumental portico in the delicate Ionic order expressed in the arrangement of pilasters which wound around the entire building. A powerful pedestal and a harmoniously composed triangular pediment provided the necessary distancing effect and urban accent.

During the Civil War, Richmond served as the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and the Virginia State Capitol building housed both the State assembly and the Confederate government.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, became a key figure in the turn to Neoclassicism from the Roman-Baroque pathos of the Late Georgian Style that had begun to be thought of as conservative. He pioneered also an independent North American architecture. As a connoisseur he had studied the works of the English Neo-Palladians early in his career, and from 1768 had begun to draw his own designs. In 1769 he designed and built a villa modeled on Palladio’s centrally planned structures for his country estate in Monticello. Influenced by his years as ambassador to Paris - which had brought him into contact with contemporary French architecture - he later redesigned crucial features of this building, lending it more monumentality and grace. The building was not completed until 1809.

The white portico on four Corinthian columns rises to the height of a single floor and is clearly differentiated from the broad brick expanse of the body of the house. A dome on an octagonal drum signals this as being the most important part of the house. In a language of classical forms Jefferson created a building whose elegance - and, in particular, its integration into the surrounding landscape - directly address the viewers’s senses.

The villa in Monticello became the cradle of the Federal Style, as the architecture of the newly independent 13 North American states was called. This Neoclassical style was combined with Enlightenment thought, while at the same time its monumentality and dominance of landscape could be translated into ever greater dimensions.