Thomas Jefferson

Monticello west front

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy entertained at a state dinner an august group of Nobel Prize winners and other outstanding figures from various scientific fields of the time. In remarks afterwards, he commented, "This is the most remarkable assembly of talent and expertise in the arts and sciences that has ever been gathered at one time in this house...with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." It was not a hollow statement. Jefferson was probably the most broadly educated man ever to hold the office of President. He was a statesman, lawyer, writer, scientist, educator, architect, and farmer. A graduate of William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he studied law, it was there he met an earlier gentleman-architect, Richard Taliaferro. Neither man had any formal training in design or engineering beyond that which they were able to obtain themselves from the books on the subject by English architects such as Robert Morris and Palladio. As early as 1760, Jefferson began designing his future home to be built on a hilltop site he called Monticello near Charlottsville, Virginia. Construction didn't begin until 1769, and even then being far inland, located in the foothills of the Appalachians, it was slow going. The original design called for a two story structure with a tall, balconied portico. It was completed in 1782.

Monticello's main floor with the original 1772 structure in black.
Note the minimized, almost hidden stairways.

The Revolutionary War intervened. Jefferson went to Paris as the American minister to France. There he came to realize that the world did not revolve around Palladio. There he was exposed to the best Paris had to offer in the way of culture, art, and architecture. When he returned, after the war, he had his home torn down to the foundation. He replaced it with a simpler, Neoclassical design with strong French and Italian influences, most notably the Italian Villa Rotunda, which had as the basis of its design none other than the Roman Pantheon itself. He employed this element on a limited basis adding a dome-topped drum and portico to his new design, except that the drum became an octagon and the dome was created of wood. It was fairly simple in design. The same design he used on a more impressive scale in planning the library on the campus of the University of Virginia (1822-26) which he helped found.

Library rotunda, University of Virginia,
Charlottsville, influenced by the Pantheon
in Rome

As a result of its redesign, Monticello's combination of brick and whitewashed wood is, without a doubt, the most beautiful home in America for its time. Regardless of whether one approaches it from the East or the West, its visage is perfection itself. Jefferson had some pretty radical ideas about architecture (as, indeed, he did on a number of subjects). He felt, for instance, that no home should have a "back" to it. He saw his home as something of a domestic temple, freestanding and approachable from any angle. He had little use for the large, impressive, curved stairways coming into vogue at the time. His are barely two feet wide and all but hidden away. Indeed, the upper level consists of little more than an octagon shaped ballroom under the dome and attic storage space  What appears at first glance to be an elegant, yet surprisingly modest one-story plan, is actually three stories, thanks to ingenious arrangement of balustrades which largely hide the upper level, and broad, terraced wings extending out from the exposed basement level.  Inside are architectural innovations that (with the addition of indoor plumbing) would, even today, make for very gracious, comfortable living--a home fit for a President.

Despite Jefferson's distaste for it, Monticello does have
a seldom photographed "back" side, the East front seen here.
The dome is so low as to be barely discernible from this angle.

Thomas Jefferson Portraits

Official White House portrait, Thomas Jefferson, Rembrandt Peale

Thomas Jefferson, London, 1786,
Mather Brown, National Portrait Gallery

With the exception of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson may be the most revered man in American history. Notice I did not say the most revered president, though that's an important factor. It's not because he wrote most of the Declaration of Independence or that he was one of the founders of the University of Virginia, or that he was probably the most effective Secretary of State in the history of this country. It's not because he recognized a great real estate deal when he saw it (the Louisiana Purchase) or that he instigated the historic Louis and Clark Expedition to check out what we'd just bought from Franc;, or that he was a better than average architect, not to mention a scientist and first-rate intellectual. No, we recognize Jefferson as the second great-est American statesman simply because he was ALL of these things standing in just one pair of shoes. Born in 1743, today, April 13, 2016, would have been his 273rd. birthday.

 

Jefferson sat for many portrait artist during his eighty-three years.

Our third President of the United States was born at the family home in Shadwell in the Colony of Virginia, the third of ten children. He was the son of Peter Jefferson, a plantation owner who died when Jefferson was fourteen. The future president began his educational training with local tutors hired by the family. In 1752, he began attending a local school run by a Scottish Presbyterian minister. At age nine, he began studying Latin, Greek, and French. Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the age of sixteen where he studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy. He graduated, two years later in 1762. He studied law under Professor George Wythe so as to obtain his law license, while working as a law clerk in Wythe's office.

 

Jefferson demonstrated his skills as an architect not only in the creation of his home at Monticello, but in remodeling the Governor's Mansion in Williamsburg (top-left) as well as in planning the "Academic Village" and library at the University of Virginia near his home.

In 1768 Jefferson began construction of his primary residence, which he called Monticello (Italian for "Little Mountain"), on a hilltop overlooking his 5,000-acre plantation. Work was done mostly by local masons and carpenters, assisted by slaves. Jefferson moved into the still uncompleted, Palladian style, neoclassical home in 1770. Two years later, Jefferson married his third cousin Martha Wayles Skelton, a 23-year-old widow. During their ten years of marriage, Martha bore six children, only two of which lived to adulthood. Martha later suffered from ill health, including diabetes. Frequent childbirth further weakened her. In 1782, a few months after the birth of her last child, Martha Jefferson died at the age of thirty-three. After serving three years as Secretary of State, Jefferson returned to Monticello where he initiated a remodeling based on the architectural concepts he had acquired in France. The project continued throughout most of his presidency, resulting it the exquisite model of Neoclassical design (above) that survives today.

Jean Leon Gerome Ferris depicts Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams
preparing documents in Jefferson’s apartment in Philadelphia. Both before and after becoming president, Jefferson worked closely with virtually all the "founding fathers" as they
reached political compromises and struggled to give birth to a new nations.

Martha Jefferson Randolph, served as
her father's White House hostess.

After having served as colonial Governor of Virginia, and as a member of the Virginia legislature, Jefferson went on to serve as an envoy to England during the Rev-olutionary war, Secretary of State, Vice President under John Adams, and finally, in 1800 he was elected President by the House of Repre-sentatives due to a tie vote in the Electoral College, though it took thirty-six ballots to do so. Aaron Burr was his vice president. Though he got off to a rough start, Jefferson is today considered among the top three or four most historically significant pres-idents in the history of the United States. Jefferson, being a widower, called upon his daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, to serve as his White House hostess. Back at that time, the job of President didn't pay very well. Jefferson covered many of his expenses out of his own pocket, thus leaving office in 1808 deeply in debt. Following the burning of the Library of Congress with the British invasion of Washington during the War of 1812, Jefferson sold his personal library to the government for $23,950, (a sizable sum of money at the time) which no doubt helped with his debts. I wonder why he didn't just write his memoir?

Thomas Jefferson, Edward E. Hlavka, Rapid City, SD

Thomas Jefferson, the Sage of Monticello,
George Stuart, one-quarter scale mixed
media figure.

 

Virginia Art

Virginia Landscape, Kelly Rasmussen

In my continuing series delving into the state of art in the various states of the United States, the Commonwealth (not state) of Virginia has come to pique my interest. Nicknamed the "Old Dominion," and the "Mother of Presidents" (birthplace of eight), we might also refer to it geographically as the northernmost of the southern states having been one of the first to be permanently settled by European immigrants (Jamestown, 1607). As with most of the other British colonies, the art of Virginia grew first out of portraiture in the early 1700s, then landscape painting in the early 1800s. Wealthy Virginia plantation owners wanted to be remembered first, and then to boast their vast land holdings. Two of the eight Virginia presidents especially stand out in this regard, Washington, and Jefferson, though most of the others also prone to this attitude.

George Washington in Retirement at His Home in Mount Vernon, Virginia, 1797, Currier and Ives

West Front, Monticello, Jane Braddick Peticolas.

George Washington had his Mount Vernon (above), Jefferson his Monticello (left). I've visited both and painted both. I'd post them here, but not being from Virginia, that might be a bit presumptuous of me. (They're also long ago, stashed far away, and long since sold, so digging them up would hardly be worth the effort.) The fellows at Currie & Ives capitalized on Washington's retirement in 1797 to depict the Father of our Country as a simple (slave owning) country farmer while Jefferson's stately estate featured his stepchildren enjoying the front yard (the slaves were all too busy to pose).

Cornwallis' Surrender at Yorktown, 1797, John Trumbull

Like many of the older states of the United States, Virginia is as rich in history as it is in art history, the two inevitably intertwined. It's somewhat of an oversimplification, but most of this history is draped over its having endured two major wars--the 18th-century Revolutionary War, and the mid-19th-century Civil War. Trumbull's Cornwallis' Surrender at Yorktown, from 1797, symbolizes the first conflict. The second is not so simple, with several different facets which Virginia artists have felt the need to explore. One of the earliest, and most often ignored of these is Thomas Moran's Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia (below) dating from 1862. It's not hard to see where the artist's sympathies lie.

Slave Hunt Dismal Swamp Virginia, 1862, Thomas Moran

The Civil War is heavily laden with art. Having come near the dawn of practical photography, and long before it could be published in newspapers or magazines, the artist reigned supreme in depicting the conflict, both from the battlefield and from the comforts of his studio in the decades that followed. Walter Colvin's CSS Virginia (formerly the Merrimac, below), tied with its nemesis, the USS Monitor in being the world's first ironclad naval vessel. Colvin, quite naturally, depicting her proudly cruising, rather than barely limping back to port after the battle.

CSS Virginia, (date uncertain, but long after the war), Walter Colvin

Though both Jefferson's and Washington's homes were spared the devastation of war, such was not the case with many other bastions of the southern aristocracy, such as William Byrd's plantation at Westover, Virginia (below), dating from 1865, in which the artist, Edward Lamson Henry, depicts the war ravaged estate, one wing in ruins, yet still a central hub for post-war local activity.

Westover Virginia, 1865, Edward Lamson Henry

As with all good things, all bad things eventually come to an end. Jean Leon Gerome Ferris's Let Us Have Peace (below), dates from 1865, likely painted just shortly after the scene took place at Virginia's rural Appomattox Courthouse in order to capitalize on the event, hoping to sell prints and the painting itself. It's said to be fairly accurate.


Let Us Have Peace, 1865, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

It would be unfair to hang all of Virginia's history on the back of two wars. Any state whose culture and educational system produces eight presidents has far more going for it than war (or art). During the early 1900s, a local pastor by the name of Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin persuaded John D. Rockefeller, Jr., even in the midst of the Great Depression, to help him preserve Virginia's rapidly deteriorating colonial capital at Williamsburg. The results, as seen by Robert Finale in his Colonial Williamsburg (below), speak for themselves. I've been there...painted that, as well. Situated at the very hub of Virginia's colonial history (Jamestown, Yorktown, and the Carter's Grove plantation on the picturesque James River), I'd place it at the top of the state's commonwealth's must-see attractions.

Colonial Williamsburg, Robert Finale

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond ,VA.

Art in Virginia today is more than wars and giant, outdoor, museum artifacts. It's blessed with a couple major art museums as well, one in Richmond, the other in Roanoke. Though both are rather new and modern looking, they could hardly be more different. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (left) is strikingly contemporary, yet at the same time, appears almost "stogy" as compared to the daring architecture of Roanoke's Taubman Museum of Art (below). Quite apart from their holdings, the two museums stand as examples of the two competing trends in museum design today. Richmond's Virginia Museum of Fine Arts merely houses its collection. The Roanoke facility strives to become a part of the art within its walls--a work of art itself.

Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA, by American architect, Rick Mather.

King Neptune, Paul diPasquale, Virginia Beach

I'd be remiss in talking about the art of Virginia if I failed to highlight the art of today. For the most part it has little to do with the past, more oriented instead to the present and the future. Richmond Sculptor, Paul diPasquale's King Neptune (left), is something of a link between the two. Though modern-day in origin,  reigning over Virginia Beach, it hearkens back to Greek mythology long before there was a Virginia. Perhaps not far from diPasquale's King Neptune, Jennifer E. Young has rendered the state's namesake playground with the all-important mixture of sun, sand, and salty seawater.

Beach Day 2, Jennifer E. Young

White Charlet Cow, Norma Wilson--
What'chu lookin' at? You lookin' at ME?

 

The White House

Perhaps not the most beautiful shot of the White House but it does give an excellent
feel for the place--a luxurious country estate in the middle of a bustling city.

If one were to make a list of the most important or the most beautiful buildings in the United States, the big, white, Georgian mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, would be near the top of either list. I've been there three times, the first in 1963 when it was the home of Camelot and the Kennedy's. The second time was some five years later when the Kennedy nemesis, Richard Nixon occupied the place, and then again, a year or so later with my wife-to-be. Back then all one had to do was line up at the East Wing and you where literally home free. Times change. So has the Executive Mansion, as it was first called back in 1792 when the cornerstone was laid by George Washington, himself (on a site he'd personally selected).

Charleston County Courthouse, 1791, James Hoban, architect.

Hoban's design entry in the competition seems to be simply a more grandiose version of his Charleston courthouse. Having won the competition, Washington influenced Hoban to employ a two-story façade.

James Hoban designed the place. Hoban was an Irish architect from South Carolina at a time when American architects (of any caliber) were as rare as the proverbial hen's teeth. Washington probably met Hoban during a southern tour shortly after becoming president. Hoban's Charleston, SC, courthouse (second image) is remarkably like his submission in the design completion which Washington had a strong hand in judging (directly above). At Washington's behest, Hoban's revised design was less palatial.



Thomas Jefferson's design competition submission was influenced by Palladio's Villa Rotunda.

Latrobe's west elevation bears the hallmarks
of Jefferson as much as Latrobe.

However, the White House we know today is as much influenced by our third president as our first. Thomas Jefferson, in fact, entered (anonymously) the same design competition as Hoban with a domed design (above) not unlike his Monticello. Despite having not won the completion, as president, Jefferson commissioned Capitol architect Benjamin Latrobe to design the north and south porticoes, although neither were built until the 1820s.

Mrs. Harrison's proposed White House additions

During the late 1800s the U.S. presidency began to outgrow the White House. With the election of President Benjamin Harrison in 1888,  came his wife, Caroline, who was much displeased with what she found in moving into the historic structure. Immediately she called upon architect, Fred Owen to propose no less than three possible remedies, (1.) a whole new White House on Sixteenth Street, (2.) relatively minor additions to the residence, and (3.) extensive, three-story wings that would have forever changed the appearance of the mansion, giving it a central courtyard and a  Beaux Arts palace-like ambiance (above). Mrs. Harrison died of tuberculosis during her husbands term in office, and fortunately, her grandiose plans died with her.

1950--building a new White House inside the old.

The need, however, persisted into the new century, and when the inevitable wings sprouted, during the early 1900s, more level architectural heads at McKim, Meade, and White prevailed, maintaining very much the original, graceful appearance and proportions hammered out by Hoban, Washington, Jefferson, and Latrobe. During the Truman administration, the place was literally gutted and rebuilt from the inside out into the modern home/office we know today. With the addition of the pleasant Truman Balcony (below), which eliminated the need for ugly awnings behind the pillars of the south portico, little has changed on the outside, while inside, the White House has taken on the additional roll of a living presidential museum with portraits and artifacts of every president and his family who have ever lived there...as well as one who never did.

President Obama enters the south entrance of  White House, March 30, 2012.

 

Hadrian's Villa

Even in ruins, the lives of men are reflected in their homes.

The man himself, the Roman
Emperor, Hadrian, 76-138 CE.

Though I have no idea who first penned it, there's an old saying, "The greatest of all works of art are the lives of men." (And presumably women.) Certainly any number of great men and women, from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Gates to Catherine the Great serve to illustrate the truth of this phrase. Evidence of their greatness can usually be seen in what they built, whether it's a great nation or a huge, powerful corporation. Very often too, important insights into the personal character of these individuals can be seen in the physical structures they build for their homes as well. Our own Thomas Jefferson left us Monticello, Microsoft's Bill Gates has his techno-mansion on the shores of Lake Washington, and Russia's Catherine the Great still haunts the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and her palace in Pushkin. Each is an indelible, sharply accurate reflection of its builder, whether they actually drew the plans and supervised construction (many did), or merely dictated whims and preferences to professionals. In some ways, we can all identify with this very human trait, albeit on a smaller scale, as we ourselves look about at what we've built with our hands, heads, and hearts for our own human habitation.

 




This model recreates with a fair degree of accuracy Hadrian's country villa "city."



Unfortunately, other reflective architectural façades have not survived along with their builders' historic presences. Some are known only through legends, contemporary accounts, or through the arts and sciences of the architectural pathologists we call archaeologists. Today, one such reflection of a man lies in ruins near Tivoli, a small town in the Apennine foothills north of Rome, two-thirds the way up the Italian boot. At the height of its glory around 134 CE, it rivalled Rome itself in size, occupying some seven square miles (three-fourths the size of Rome at the time). It was so large; in fact, that area peasants in the Middle Ages thought it was the remains of an ancient Roman city. Today we know it as the country home and principal architectural remnant of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Today, and for the past fifteen hundred years since it was sacked by the Goths, it is little more than a maze of decimated walls covered with ivy among which tourists stroll, trying to picture what once was one of the most beautiful palaces in the world.

If the ruins seem impressive, imagine what Hadrian saw and enjoyed.

Hadrian came to Rome as emperor in 117 CE, upon the death of Trajan, following a lifetime of service in the Roman Army. He had little use for the city of Rome and Rome had little use for him. Hadrian was the son of a provincial Roman family in the far western part of Spain. He'd spent all his life sleeping in tents or temporarily ensconced in borrowed homes from farmers' huts to seaside villas. In a sense, his sprawling complex of colonnades, loggias, temples, waterworks, and gardens was a sort of architectural travelogue, an assemblage of pillars, statues, fountains, and other art and artifacts he had collected as souvenirs during his incessant travels all over the Roman Empire. Even as emperor, he spent the first ten years of his reign on the road. It was only in his later years, as arteriosclerosis set in and he began looking for a retirement home, that his palatial villa began to take on his own persona.




Hadrian's island villa within a villa.

Hadrian was a lover of all things Greek. In style, his home was more Greek than Roman. Beyond this, it had no overall plan. Various structures (28 in all) were built at various times, not in relation to one another, but in relation to the site itself and their various functions. It was still being decorated when he died in 138 CE. The layout looks surprisingly informal even though there appear to have been many formal areas, as in the highly rectilinear garden layouts. But in looking at a model of the complex, one gets the feeling the Medieval peasants were right, it was more like a small city, yet one dedicated to the tastes and whimsy of a single man. At the heart of the palace was a large circular pool, surrounded by a colonnade. In the centre of the pool was a marble island (above) that could be reached only by two drawbridges. It was here, in a sort of open apartment of but nine small rooms, that Hadrian came to be alone - a sort of villa within a villa. Elsewhere could be found long marble pools reflecting landscaped courtyards for gymnastics, ball games, wrestling, and other forms of exercise. There was a huge library, hundreds of sculptures, and flowing waterways used to cool rooms, supply the kitchens, the gardens, the fountains, the baths, and finally to sluice out the latrines before flowing back into a river. Mosaics decorated the floors and walls which were also adorned with frescoes and tapestries.

A nice place to visit and, in its time, you might have enjoyed living there.

Even today, as ivy climbs these same walls, stripped of their finery, even of their marble facings, the villa has the lingering ambiance of a movie set, its slightly restored panoramas as photogenic now as when men in togas enjoyed the quiet, reflective beauty of the site. Ancient as it is, we feel as if we, as modern creatures of comfort, could be very much at home here; that its mix of formal informality and tasteful luxury would have been surprisingly pleasant even by today's standards. Hadrian was one of history's wisest rulers and one of Rome's better emperors. But recorded history aside, in seeing the wasted walls of his plundered palace, we have the feeling we know this man, and would like to know him better.

For hundreds of years, Hadrian's ruins have fascinated artists.

 

Rietveld-Schroder House

The Rietveld-Schroder House, Utrecht, Netherlands.
(The dark mound on the roof is the house next door.)

Truus Schroder and Gerrit Rietveld
--a collaboration so close that after the death
of his wife, Rietveld moved in with her.

In having been a student of domestic architecture for many years, I've found one major factor which permeates the design and construction of every great example in the field--it must be a collaboration between the architect and the owner (and his or her spouse). Sometimes its a very close collaboration, as when the architect is the owner Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and Charles Eames and his wife, Ray, are examples. In other cases (as in the Bob Hope House) the owner simply guides the architect, sometimes even vetoing his or her ideas. In other cases, the two work together in close collaboration, inspiring one another. That would be the case with architect, Gerrit Rietveld and owner, Truus Schroder. Close collaboration does not mean an even, 50/50 split. The owner always dominates the team and can, perhaps at some cost, fire the architect. By the same token, the architect gets paid a substantial fee to do far more than half the work in originating the plan and supervising construction.

The Schroder House does not photograph well from the inside. Its modest dimensions preclude wide angles. Rietveld's Mondrian-style furniture, color, and interior details brighten the interior, making it seem roomier than it is. Note the sliding partition track in the ceiling.

Truus Schroder-Schrader, born in 1889, was the widowed mother of three, a registered pharmacist living in Biltstraat. Her father had owned a textile factory, her late husband had been a lawyer, so, while not wealthy, she was financially "comfortable." After her husband's death during the early 1920s, she found it necessary to find a more affordable home. She chose Utrecht, and being a longtime patron of the arts, she chose the untested De Stijl (the style) furniture designer, Gerrit Rietveld. Rietveld had never designed a house before, which was just as well, in that what Truus Schroder wanted in the way of a home was very little like any house ever designed before. Her tastes were modern, and her lifestyle demanded flexibility (raising three kids tends toward that need).

Notice that each space on the ground floor has its own outside access.
The word "room" never appears in any of the plans. They're activity areas.

The other great influence in the design of the Rietveld-Schroder House was a painter, also a De Stijl advocate--Piet Mondrian (before anyone had ever heard of him). He and Rietveld, though quite different in personalities, were good friends. Inside and out, the Rietveld-Schroder House was like walking into a Mondrian painting (top), to the point the collaboration probably should have had Mondrian's name appended to it. Mondrian, Schroder, and Rietveld lived and breathed rectangles, black lines, planes of primary colors, ultra-simple masses, and an aesthetic lifestyle most people now (and certainly then) would find obsessive.

The second-floor plan with sliding partitions fully deployed.

The design process was not easy. Where Mrs. Schroder wanted her house was on a small lot at the end of a chain of 19th century row houses near the outskirts of Utrecht. The new house had to share a back wall with the three-story house next door, which accounts for the dark mass often seen in photos of the house. By American standards, the lot was not just small, but tiny. The house itself, two-stories tall; planned around a central curved stairway and chimney; is approximately 30 feet by 20 feet (barely 1,200 square feet) with a garden area (a yard in the American vernacular) running around three sides of the house--spacious by Dutch standards but "postage stamp" size to Americans. Mrs. Schroder wanted to live close to nature and this was as close as she could get while still living in an urban area (the area near the house was undeveloped until after WW II). The house was constructed in 1924. The lower level is concrete, the upper level brick and plaster. The neighbors must have been dumbstruck by its strange, incongruous appearance.

Second-floor plan featuring one large, open space.

The ground floor plan (seen just below the interior image) is rather conventional, an entry, a studio/office, a kitchen, some bedrooms, and a bathroom. Only when one looks at the second floor plan is it apparently how unconventional were Mrs. Schroder's lifestyle, decorating, and architectural tastes. Official plans submitted for a building permit showed the area as an open "attic." Sliding "walls" allowed for partitioning to any degree desired. The entire space was the ultimate in flexibility with sleeping areas, living and dining areas, and work areas all adjustable as needs changed. It was a great idea and apparently worked quite well. Mrs. Schroder lived the rest of her life (61 years) in the house she and Rietveld designed together. She died in 1985 at the age of ninety-six.

Rietveld's corner windows were likely a first, an influence for Frank Lloyd Wright?

Every woman wants to see the kitchen. There was a dumbwaiter to the second floor.
Located on the ground floor, with three kids, the kitchen was probably seldom this neat.

 

 

Classical Revival Architecture

Classical Revival style in its purest form seen
here in Benjamin Latrobe's 1798-1804 Bank of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

It would be convenient, in studying early American architecture, if the building of Colonial style homes had ceased promptly on July 4, 1776, and a whole new style had been born that day along with the new nation. Fortunately for us, the Declaration of Independence was about politics, not architecture, though certainly Thomas Jefferson, being the Renaissance man he was, could have written as eloquently about one as the other. Well, actually, he did, though his words on architecture are far outshone by his deeds. His magnificently well thought out and well proportioned statement on Classic Revival architecture embodied in his own Monticello reads as passionately, yet logically in bricks and mortar as does his immortal words to King George on parchment.

Adam style fireplace details, 1770

In general, I don't care much for "revival" architecture. Very often it can best be described as "kitsch," and in most cases, the two terms are synonyms--architecture imitating architecture. Yet, imitative or not, I love Classical Revival (top, right). Part of the reason is that Classical Revival humanized the cold, hard, geometrically dominated Classical style. I suppose, in giving it some thought, all revivalist styles do this, it's just that the Classical style of the Greeks and Romans so badly needed humanizing while all the others, didn't so much. After all, Classical architecture was the style of Roman temples, government buildings, art museums, some churches, hospitals, libraries, and bath houses. It was magnificent and grandiose, but not often very human or even on a human scale. It was the architecture of the gods!



The Georgian style Hammond-Harwood House, 1774, Anapolis, Maryland



In discussing Colonial architecture there's mostly the Georgian period just prior to the revolution (as seen above).  Though it appeared before 1776, the first hint of the upcoming Classical Revival came during the 1780s up through the 1820s in the form of what's called the Adam style (above, left). No, it was not a primitive post and lintel architecture named for the husband of Eve; but for the British architect, Robert Adam, who, along with his younger brother, had the most important architectural practice in all England during the latter part of the 18th century. If one were to describe the Adam style, it would be as a transitional movement from Georgian to true Classical Revival. There are still many Georgian elements and proportions present but it's in the details, the window and door designs, cupolas, balustrades, cornices, steps, iron balconies, and other adornments that the Adam style presaged Classical Revival. The decorations were beautiful, like fine jewelry, lots of fanlight windows, arched door frames, masonry insets with carved swags, restrained pediments over doors (or entrance stoops), curved steps, and paneled shutters. Sometimes this style is referred to as the "Federal Style," though this designation is prone to mixing the politics and architecture of the time.

Unlike many "revival" styles, Classical Revival
translates well to domestic applications as seen
in the modest, wood, single story Kempf house,
dating from 1852-53 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Every July Fourth we think back to the American founding fathers. In addition to Jefferson, we might also consider some of the founding fathers of American architecture as well, all of whom came to their profession copying the Adam style of their English cousins before moving on to the full-fledged Classical Revival that was to become synonymous with the democratic ideals of their new nation. From Boston came Charles Bulfinch; from Savannah, William Jay; from Philadelphia, Benjamin Latrobe; from Charleston, Gabriel Manigault; from New York, John McComb; from Massachusetts, Samuel McIntire; and from Maine, Alexander Parris. It would be romantic, not to mention inspirational, to think of these great designers, artists, and builders from all over the colonies as having met somewhere across town from Independence hall to sign some great architectural manifesto of independence from Great Britain. Sadly, it didn't happen. Given the geography and provincial nature of the American colonies, most of them probably didn't even know each other. Yet independently, these founding fathers guided their new nation's carpenters and craftsmen into the molding of a new national architecture reflecting the same noble, democratic, human principals as those of Jefferson and his cohorts.