The Rotunda (University of Virginia)

Historic building at the University of Virginia

For other uses, see Rotunda (disambiguation).

United States historic place

Rotunda, University of Virginia

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

U.S. National Historic Landmark

U.S. National Historic Landmark District
Contributing Property

Virginia Landmarks Register

The Rotunda

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Location| Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.
Coordinates| 38°02′08″N 78°30′12″W﻿ / ﻿38.03567°N 78.50340°W﻿ / 38.03567; -78.50340
Built| 1822–1826
Architect| Thomas Jefferson; Stanford White
Architectural style| Early Republic, Neoclassical
Part of| University of Virginia Historic District (ID70000865)
NRHP reference No.| 66000937[1]
VLR No.| 002-5055
Significant dates
Added to NRHP| October 15, 1966
Designated NHL| December 21, 1965[3]
Designated NHLDCP| November 11, 1971
Designated VLR| September 9, 1969[2]

The Rotunda is a building located on The Lawn on the original grounds of the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson designed it to represent the "authority of nature and power of reason" and modeled it after the Pantheon in Rome. Construction began in 1822 and was completed shortly after Jefferson's death in 1826. The campus of the new university was unique in that its buildings surrounded a library (the principal function of the Rotunda) rather than a church, as was common at other universities in the English-speaking world. To many, the Rotunda symbolizes Jefferson's belief in the separation of church and education, and represents his lifelong dedication to education and architecture. The Rotunda was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and is part of the University of Virginia Historic District, designated in 1971.

The collegiate structure, the immediate area around it, and Jefferson's nearby home at Monticello combine to form one of only six modern man-made sites in the United States to be internationally protected and preserved as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO (the other five are the Old City of San Juan, the San Antonio Missions, Independence Hall, the Statue of Liberty, and the architectural works of Frank Lloyd Wright).

The original construction cost of the Rotunda was $57,773 ($992,792 in 2006 dollars). The building stands 77 feet (23.5 m) in both height and diameter.

## History[edit]

### Design influences[edit]

Jefferson's design was influenced by the architectural drawings of Andrea Palladio and is an example of Palladian architecture. The direct source for Jefferson's inspiration is believed to be a drawing of the Pantheon in the 1721 Leoni translation of Palladio, which Jefferson owned and referred to during the building process.[4] While Jefferson used the detailed measurements of the Pantheon to guide the proportions of his Rotunda, the dimensions of his building are much smaller: the interior diameter of the Pantheon's dome is 143 feet, whereas the exterior diameter of Jefferson's dome is 77 feet, "being half that of the Pantheon and consequently one fourth in area, and one eighth in volume."[5]

B. Henry Latrobe first proposed the domed central building at the head of the Lawn in a letter to Jefferson dated July 17, 1817, and Latrobe's influence on the design of the Rotunda is substantial. Jefferson's Pavilion III also is based on a design drawing from Latrobe.[6]

Jefferson also deferred to Palladio's model for significant details of the building. In a letter to Thomas Appleton, then the United States consul in Liguria, Jefferson requested pricing for "ten Corinthian capitals for columns of 32 I. diminished diam. and 8 do. half capitals of the same diam. for pilasters of 30 minutes projection from the wall, to be copied from those of the Rotunda, or Pantheon, of Rome, as represented in Palladio."[7]

### Design and construction[edit]

1819 draft of the Rotunda

During the Marquis de Lafayette's grand tour of the United States in 1824 and 1825, the Marquis and former President James Madison dined with Thomas Jefferson in the Dome Room of the unfinished Rotunda at the university's inaugural banquet, and Lafayette toasted Jefferson as the "Father of the University of Virginia". This moved Jefferson, and he later had the phrase inscribed on his grave. A bust of Lafayette was given to the university in 1904 by the Government of France to honor the friendship between the two men. Today it stands in the North Oval Room.

The building was constructed with slave labor.[8]

The university being the first at which students could specialize in the field of Astronomy, Jefferson toyed with the idea of painting the interior of the Dome Room with images of the night sky to aid the students in their learning. He went so far as to begin designing a new mechanism with which students would be able to "float" through the air and study heavenly bodies from closer different viewpoints. They would also be equipped with a control to move the stars around the Dome. The idea was eventually abandoned but would have been the first planetarium in the United States. The Transit of Venus of 1882 was observed from the steps of the Rotunda, in a coordinated effort with McCormick Observatory.

### Alterations[edit]

The Great Rotunda Fire in 1895 Renovation underway on the Rotunda in 2011, with the Thomas Jefferson statue in the foreground The Dome Room of the Rotunda in 2008

A structure called the Annex, also known as "New Hall," was added to the north side of the Rotunda in 1853 to provide additional classroom space needed due to overcrowding.[9] (A rare photograph of the Annex may be viewed at the University of Virginia's online visual history collection.)[10]

In 1895, the Rotunda was gutted by a fire that started in the Annex.[11] University students saved what was, for them, the most important item within the Rotunda—a life-size likeness of Thomas Jefferson carved from marble that was given to the university by Alexander Galt in 1861. The students also rescued a portion of the books of the university library from the Dome Room, as well as various scientific instruments from the classrooms in the Annex.

Shortly after the fire, recommended a program of rebuilding that called for the reconstruction of the Rotunda and the replacement of the lost classroom space of the Annex with a set of buildings at the south end of the Lawn.[12] In the new design, the wooden dome was replaced with a fireproof tile dome by the Guastavino Company of New York in 1898–1899. The Rotunda was rebuilt with a modified design by Stanford White, a nationally known architect and partner in the New York City firm McKim, Mead, and White. Whereas Jefferson's Rotunda had three floors, White's had only two, but a larger Dome Room. The Annex was not rebuilt.

In 1976 during America's Bicentennial, White's Rotunda interior was gutted and rebuilt, at a cost of $2.4 million, to Jefferson's original design. In the Bicentennial issue of the AIA Journal, the American Institute of Architects called Jefferson's Rotunda, Lawn, and nearby home at Monticello "the proudest achievement of American architecture in the past 200 years".[13]

There is a plaque, on the south side of the Rotunda, listing the names of students and graduates of the university who were killed during the Civil War. Other plaques on the south side list those killed during World War I while plaques on the north side list those killed in World War II and the Korean War.

Today, doctoral students defend their dissertations in the North Oval Room, and many events (including monthly dinners for residents of the Lawn) are held inside the Dome Room. Other events are held on the steps of the Rotunda, which is also the traditional starting point for students streaking the Lawn.

In 2012, the university began an extensive construction project to repair and renovate the aging Rotunda.[14] The first phase of the project replaced the Rotunda's copper roof. Although the engineers were several months ahead of schedule, the roof remained as unpainted copper for the graduating class of 2013.[15] During the renovation, a nineteenth-century chemistry laboratory was found within the walls on the bottom floor featuring a chemical hearth and a sophisticated ventilation system through a series of brick tunnels.[16] The Rotunda reopened in September 2016.[17]

## Legacy[edit]

View from The Lawn to the Rotunda, 2010

Buildings designed by inspiration of the Rotunda and Lawn include the expansive green spaces headed by Rotunda-like buildings built at Duke University in 1892, Johns Hopkins University in 1902, the University of Illinois in 1907, Rice University in 1910, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 1915, the Green at the University of Delaware in 1916, Killian Court at MIT in 1916 and the "Grand Auditorium" of Tsinghua University in Beijing built in 1917. Additionally, Dallas Hall at Southern Methodist University (SMU), Hendricks Chapel at Syracuse University, Florida State University College of Law, and Grawemeyer Hall at the University of Louisville were modeled after Jefferson's Rotunda. The Sterling Divinity Quadrangle at Yale Divinity School (1932) was closely based on the Academical Village at the University of Virginia, but with the Marquand Chapel taking the place of the Rotunda.

The original campus at the University of Alabama was modeled after Jefferson's Rotunda and Lawn. The Rotunda there, completed in 1833, also contained the university's library. However, it and most of the other public campus buildings were burned as part of Wilson's Raid during the American Civil War.[18][19][8]

## See also[edit]

* Jeffersonian architecture
* List of National Historic Landmarks in Virginia
* Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (the same dimensions as the Rotunda)
* National Register of Historic Places listings in Albemarle County, Virginia

## References[edit]

1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
2. ^ "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
3. ^ "Rotunda, University of Virginia". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 6, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2008.
4. ^ Giordano, Ralph G. (212). The Architectural Ideology of Thomas Jefferson. p. 210\. ISBN 9780786490912.
5. ^ Patton, John S. (1906). Jefferson, Cabell, and the University of Virginia. p. 186.
6. ^ Wilson, Richard Guy (2000). Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village. pp. 18–25.
7. ^ Patton, 185.
8. ^ a b Smith, Stephen (September 4, 2017). "Shackled Legacy: History shows slavery helped build many U.S. colleges and universities". American Public Media. Retrieved June 9, 2018. "The story of slavery is basically everywhere at the old university," says Kirt Von Daacke, an assistant dean and a professor of history. "About a million bricks went into building the Rotunda. And every one of them was touched by an enslaved person."
9. ^ "So You Want to Be a UGuide?". Archived from the original on July 13, 2010. Retrieved March 20, 2008.
10. ^ "Rotunda Annex". University of Virginia Visual History Collection. Archived from the original on July 20, 2011. Retrieved March 20, 2008.
11. ^ "The Rotunda: History". Archived from the original on January 5, 2009. Retrieved January 15, 2009.
12. ^ Bruce, Philip Alexander (1921). History of the University of Virginia, 1819-1919: The Lengthened Shadow of One Man. New York: MacMillan. pp. 257–272. "editions:0BLxWloAaoujinN78oyz9F1."
13. ^ AIA Journal, 65 (July 1976), p. 91
14. ^ "The Rotunda - The Campaign for the University of Virginia". Archived from the original on July 12, 2013. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
15. ^ "Inclement Weather Leads to Unique Distinction for Class of 2013". UVA Today. May 8, 2013. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
16. ^ Urbanus, Jason (January–February 2016). "Mr. Jefferson's Laboratory" (PDF). Archaeology. 69 (1): 18. ISSN 0003-8113. Retrieved August 31, 2017 – via EBSCO's Master File Complete (subscription required) `{{cite journal}}`: External link in ``|postscript=`` (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
17. ^ "Rotunda To Display Its Glory Once Again". UVA Today. September 20, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
18. ^ "University of Alabama Rotunda 1859". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
19. ^ Center, Clark E. (1990). "The Burning of the University of Alabama". Alabama Heritage. Spring 1990 (16): 30–45. Archived from the original on September 17, 2010.

## External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rotunda (University of Virginia).

* Live webcam Archived July 28, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
* UVa's Rotunda web page
* Academical Village map
* Tales in the Rotunda's Past (includes cow on the roof)
* University of Virginia, Rotunda, University Avenue & Rugby Road, Charlottesville, Charlottesville, VA: 3 photos and 1 measured drawing at Historic American Buildings Survey

* v
* t
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Thomas Jefferson

* 3rd President of the United States (1801–1809)
* 2nd Vice President of the United States (1797–1801)
* 1st United States Secretary of State (1790–1793)
* U.S. Minister to France (1785–1789)
* Delegate to the Congress of the Confederation (1783–1784)
* 2nd Governor of Virginia (1779–1781)
* Delegate to the Second Continental Congress (1775–1776)

Founding
documents of
the United States|

* A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
* Olive Branch Petition (initial draft; 1775)
* Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775)
* Declaration of Independence (1776)
* Committee of Five
* authored
* physical history
* "All men are created equal"
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* "Consent of the governed"
* Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1777 draft and 1786 passage
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* Northwest Ordinance (1787)

French Revolution|

* Co-author, Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789)

Presidency|

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Other noted
accomplishments|

* Early life and career
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* Founder, University of Virginia
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* First Party System
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* Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States (1790)
* Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
* A Manual of Parliamentary Practice (1801)
* American Creed
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Jeffersonian
architecture|

* Barboursville
* Farmington
* Monticello
* gardens
* Poplar Forest
* University of Virginia
* The Rotunda
* The Lawn
* Jefferson Hall
* Virginia State Capitol
* White House Colonnades

Other writings|

* The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
* Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)
* Proposals for concerted operation among the powers at war with the Pyratical states of Barbary (1786)
* European journey memorandums (1787)
* Indian removal letters
* The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (c. 1819)
* Jefferson manuscript collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society
* Founders Online

Related|

* Age of Enlightenment
* American Enlightenment
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* patriots
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Elections|

* Presidential elections
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memorials|

* Bibliography
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* Louisiana Purchase Exposition gold dollar
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* 250th Anniversary silver dollar
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* Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Cultural
depictions|

* The Patriots (1946 play)
* Ben and Me (1953 short)
* 1776
* 1969 musical
* 1972 film
* Jefferson in Paris (1995 film)
* Thomas Jefferson (1997 film)
* Liberty! (1997 documentary series)
* Liberty's Kids (2002 animated series)
* John Adams (2008 miniseries)
* Jefferson's Garden (2015 play)
* Hamilton
* 2015 musical
* 2020 film
* Washington (2020 miniseries)
* Wine bottles controversy

Family|

* Martha Jefferson (wife)
* Martha Jefferson Randolph (daughter)
* Mary Jefferson Eppes (daughter)
* Harriet Hemings (daughter)
* Madison Hemings (son)
* Eston Hemings (son)
* Thomas J. Randolph (grandson)
* Francis Eppes (grandson)
* George W. Randolph (grandson)
* John Wayles Jefferson (grandson)
* Frederick Madison Roberts (great-grandson)
* Peter Jefferson (father)
* Jane Randolph Jefferson (mother)
* Lucy Jefferson Lewis (sister)
* Randolph Jefferson (brother)
* Isham Randolph (grandfather)
* William Randolph (great-grandfather)

* ← John Adams
* James Madison →

* ← John Adams
* Aaron Burr →

* Category

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U.S. National Register of Historic Places in Virginia

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Lists
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Other lists|

* Bridges
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* v
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University of Virginia

Located in: Charlottesville, Virginia

Academics

| Schools|

* School of Architecture
* Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
* College of Arts & Sciences
* School of Continuing and Professional Studies
* Darden School of Business
* McIntire School of Commerce
* Curry School of Education
* School of Engineering and Applied Science
* School of Law
* School of Medicine
* School of Nursing
* College at Wise
* The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School

|

Scholarship programs|

* Echols Scholars
* Jefferson Scholars
* Rodman Scholars

Research|

* Association of American Universities
* Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy
* Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
* Japanese Text Initiative
* Universitas 21
* Mid Atlantic Terascale Partnership
* Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture
* Applied Research in Patacriticism
* Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship
* Legion
* Mentat
* Real-time Cmix

Research publications|

* University of Virginia Press
* Virginia Law Review
* Virginia Journal of International Law
* Journal of Law & Politics

Other|

* Rare Book School
* Semester at Sea
* University of Virginia Demographics and Workforce Group
* Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership
* Miller Center of Public Affairs
* University of Virginia Center for Politics
* Sabato's Crystal Ball

Athletics

| Teams and music|

* Virginia Cavaliers
* Virginia Pep Band
* Cavalier Marching Band
* Wahoos
* The Good Old Song
* The Cavalier Song

|

Sports|

* Baseball
* Men's basketball
* Women's basketball
* Football
* Men's lacrosse
* Women's lacrosse
* Men's soccer
* Women's soccer
* Swimming and diving
* Men's tennis

Rivalries|

* Virginia Tech (overall, football, and men's basketball)
* Johns Hopkins
* Maryland Terrapins
* lacrosse
* North Carolina Tar Heels

Facilities|

* Davenport Field at Disharoon Park
* John Paul Jones Arena
* Klöckner Stadium
* Lake Monticello
* Memorial Gym
* Scott Stadium
* Sheridan Snyder Tennis Center
* University Hall
* University Hall Turf Field

Grounds

* The Lawn
* The Range
* The Rotunda
* Thomas Jefferson statue
* McIntire Amphitheatre
* The Corner
* Fan Mountain Observatory
* Hereford College
* Jefferson Hall
* McCormick Observatory
* Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
* Rugby Road
* University of Virginia Cemetery

Student life

| Publications|

* The Cavalier Daily
* The Hedgehog Review
* Virginia Law Weekly
* Virginia Quarterly Review
* The Yellow Journal

|

Radio stations|

* WTJU
* WXTJ-LP

Greek life|

* University of Virginia Greek life

Debating societies|

* Jefferson Literary and Debating Society
* Washington Literary Society and Debating Union

Performing arts|

* The Academical Village People
* Hullabahoos
* Sil'hooettes
* The Virginia Belles
* Virginia Film Festival
* Virginia Gentlemen
* Virginia Glee Club

Residential colleges|

* Brown College at Monroe Hill
* Hereford College
* International Residential College
* First-year living areas
* Alderman Road
* McCormick Road

Secret societies|

* IMP Society
* Seven Society
* Z Society
* Other

People

* Alumni and faculty
* Thomas Jefferson (founder)
* Enslaved laborers
* University Presidents

Established: 1819 – Endowment: $7.53 billion – Students: 22,391

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