Architecture Around the World
Monticello
Charlottesville, Virginia
The Home of Thomas Jefferson
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Pronounced: |
mon ti CHELLO, - sello |
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Erected: |
1769-1784; enlarged 1796-1809 |
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Architect: |
Jefferson |
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Style: |
Roman Neoclassicism / Classical Revival / Jeffersonian Neoclassical |
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Official Home Page: |
http://www.monticello.org |
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Also designed by Jefferson: |
University of Virginia |
TEXT Beneath Illustrations
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East front where visitors would enter to see Jefferson |
East entrance |
East entrance clock and fanlight |
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East entrance |
East entrance |
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Flemish bond brickwork |
West front (the Jefferson family entrance). Note dome at far right |
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End of walkway: finial |
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Finial support |
Keystone over rounded (Roman) arch |
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Frontispiece, Volume I, The Architecture of A. Palladio |
Volume I, The Architecture of A. Palladio |
Temple of Fortuna, Book IV, plates XXXV-XXXVII, The Architecture of A. Palladio |
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The Monticello Graveyard |
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Excerpted from Thomas Jefferson American lawyer, statesman (President 1801-9) and architect. The author of the Declaration of Independence, he was also an influential architect (self-taught), introducing to the United States a robust Neo-classicism based on ancient Roman architecture and contemporary French Rationalism, which contrasted with the lighter Federal Style. For his own house, Monticello,Virginia (from 1770), he first designed an essentially Palladian building, but later additions transformed it into a largely single-storey classical villa in brick, with a pedimented garden portico and shallow dome. For the Virginia State Capitol, Richmond (1785-99), his design was derived from the ancient Roman Maison Carrée in Nimes, to which he was introduced while in Paris as American Ambassador (1784-9). The Capitol was the brst building in the United States designed in the form of a classical temple and was an important model for American public architecture of the period. Jefferson also influenced the planning of Washington through his knowledge of European cities and classical architecture. His design for the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (1817-26), as a group of separate faculty pavilions around a green, linked by colonnades, was possibly based on the Chateau of Marly, near Versailles. The Rotunda at the head of the green was based on the Roman Pantheon, halved in scale. Jefferson was an inventive designer, experimenting with geometric room shapes and practical ideas (e.g. for skylights, stairs and water closets) |
