Thomas Jefferson's Solar Architecture

Jefferson's design of the University of Virginia is a dialogue with sunlight and landscape. As the landscape architect Anne Spirn wrote, the lawn "linked two sources of knowledge: books and nature."

When I served as the dean of the school of architecture at the University of Virginia, I had the privilege of living in a house designed by Thomas Jefferson. Had I simply inhabited a singular Jeffersonian home, the experience would have been a source of profound and inspiring pleasure, but the house was only one part of a magnificent whole. Known as Pavilion IX, one of 10 classical pavilions facing each other across the university lawn and linked by colonnaded walkways to Jefferson’s domed Rotunda, the house is part of a unified “academical village” widely considered the greatest piece of architecture in America. So to live in Pavilion IX was to be immersed in an exquisite essay in architecture, and to feel a deep appreciation for the legacy of design.

Indeed, I think Jefferson saw himself first and foremost as a designer. Among all the achievements of his productive life, he wanted to be remembered for three things, inscribed on a stone obelisk over his grave at Monticello: “Author of the Declaration of Independence, Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, And Father of the University of Virginia.” This from a man whose distinguished career included eight years as president of the United States. For Jefferson, his activities were less important than the things he designed, suggesting a mind keenly attuned to the ways in which the poetic ordering of things could create a vital legacy.

And it is a vital legacy. In the things Jefferson made—from Monticello to the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, which matured into the Bill of Rights—we see a design sensibility that speaks to us today. We see balanced composition subtle enough to include tradition and invention, science and aesthetics, nature and culture, freedom and responsibility. We see a breadth of interest that took in politics, economics, natural history and an agrarian’s attention to the living earth, and rendered them visible in actions that changed the world. We see an architect, embracing both the practical and the poetic. We see a man who, were he with us today, would likely be calling for “Declarations of Interdependence” that recognize that our ability to pursue wealth, health and happiness is dependent on other forms of life, and that the rights of one species are linked to the rights of others.

"TODAY Jefferson would be calling for "Declarations of Interdependence" that recognize that our ability to pursue wealth, health and happiness depends on other forms of life."
William McDonough, FAIA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Simply inspiring, and a legacy we must continue.