Richard Guy Wilson in the News
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Two Architects Examine History, Future of UVa's Structures
[by Matt Kelly, UVa News Services]
Two architects examined the past and the future of the University of Virginia's Grounds at a community briefing at Newcomb Hall on Tuesday.
The briefing, “Building on Jefferson’s Legacy,” featured Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History, and David Neuman, University architect, putting a historical perspective on founder Thomas Jefferson's original design for the University and its evolution over the years.
Wilson outlined the growth of the University from 1825 to 2002, showing the original footprint of the original Academical Village – the Rotunda, Lawn rooms and pavilions, gardens, and ranges and hotels – and compared that to the University as it exists today.
Citing Jefferson's vision, Wilson said the most important element of the design is the overall plan, with all the disparate elements combining into a comprehensive package of aesthetics and functionality.
The Academical Village does not fully conform to the rules of architecture, Wilson said, but Jefferson knew the rules he was violating to create an overall design to teach the students.
"The experience of the buildings around them was as important as what was being said in the classes," he said. "It is a matter of how the space it used. It is a public communal space."
But institutions age and change, Wilson said, citing alterations that had been made and those that had been contemplated but never executed. He said Robert Mills' 1851 annex to the Rotunda was controversial, but was accepted because Mills had studied architecture with Jefferson and had designed the U.S. Treasury Building. There had been failed plans to erect a chapel in the middle of the Lawn and to put an archway honoring the Confederacy at the south end of the Lawn, he said.
And there had been controversies at the times of construction of the current chapel and Brooks Hall, which originally housed a natural history museum.
"There was an attempt to tear down Brooks Hall, but that is part of the history of the University and it shows the attitudes of the times," Wilson said.
[for complete article, follow link in headline]
Saturday, September 12, 2009
"New Research Revives Exhibit on Jefferson's Academical Village"
[by Olin Ericksen, Charlottesville Daily Progress]
Sitting cross-legged in the sunlight, University of Virginia student Ariel Cornett looked up from studying to admire her setting.
The Rotunda, columned pavilions, a lush rectangular lawn flanked by hidden ornate gardens — close to how Thomas Jefferson imagined them nearly 200 years ago — surround her.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It inspires you.”
Now an updated exhibit opening today at the newly renovated UVa Art Museum offers Cornett and others a chance to see how it got that way.
“Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village: The Creation of an Architectural Masterpiece” delves deep into the UVa founder’s crown jewel in design and building.
The same hands that helped to craft the Declaration of Independence and signed laws as a U.S. president also drew the collection of buildings and landscaping still considered the architectural cornerstones of UVa today.
“Architecture was one of his great passions,” said Richard Guy Wilson, UVa Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History and curator for the exhibit.
“He said somewhere that ‘one of my great delights is putting up and pulling down.’”
Jefferson is known for other architectural achievements, such as his Albemarle County hillside estate of Monticello. Monticello and the Academical Village are designated as World Heritage Sites.
[for complete article, follow link in headline]
Thursday, September 10, 2009
UVa Exhibit Highlights Architectural Growth Beyond the Academical Village
[UVa News Services, by Marian Anderfuren]
The University of Virginia has presented the same challenge to many distinguished architects: How does one build upon a masterpiece?
As the University has grown, Thomas Jefferson's vision has been tried and tested, adapted and interpreted. A new exhibition, "From Village to Grounds: Architecture After Jefferson at the University of Virginia," explores the solutions to the architectural challenges posed by adding to the Academical Village – from 19th-century picturesque ideals to the classicism of McKim, Mead & White and the modern architecture of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The exhibition opens Tuesday at the Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library and runs through June 30. It is part of the University's 2009 celebration of the centennial of Carr's Hill, the president's residence and the last of the buildings designed for the University by the prestigious architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White.
Also as part of the celebration, the U.Va. Art Museum will host "Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village: The Creation of an Architectural Masterpiece," a new version of the groundbreaking 1993 presentation of the same name, from Saturday through Jan. 3. And the museum and the departments of Architectural History, Art History and Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library will present a scholarly symposium, "Jefferson, Palladio, Art and Architecture and the University of Virginia," on Nov. 20 and 21, to consider the Grounds in the context of architecture, landscape design and art.
U.Va.'s architecture stems from a creative tension Jefferson embodied, according to architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson, curator of both exhibits and the University's Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History.
"He balanced a belief in classical precedent with a passion for innovation and the technology of his time," Wilson said.
"From Village to Grounds" is organized in a series of chronological sections, ranging from the additions made in 1825 for the University's 123 original enrollees to today's South Lawn Project, a contemporary response to the needs of a growing institution with more than 21,000 students.
[for complete article, follow link in headline]
Thursday, August 27, 2009
UVa Magazine, "The Vision for the Village"
[by Maura Singleton, UVa Magazine]
Before the University of Virginia was canonized as an architectural masterpiece, it was disparaged for the odd proportions and outdated style of its pavilions and “frail” materials. And long before Thomas Jefferson was hailed for his genius, skepticism persisted that such an amateur could have designed it himself.
Jefferson died in 1826 believing he had created a leading educational institution and an architectural landmark. Posterity continues to reappraise it; perceptions have obviously improved, though speculation over the sources of his ground plan—the gardens at Marly-le-Roy? The Hôtel de Salm in Paris?—has become an absorbing hair-splitting exercise among historians and critics.
[for full article, follow link in headline]
Monday, July 6, 2009
Faculty and Alumni Discuss UVa Restoration Plans in "The Hook"
[The Hook, "The Rotunda: What the devil to do with it?", June 30, 2009 by Dave McNair] As UVA prepares to restore the Lawn, just how much Jefferson to put back into it appears to be a matter of intense discussion. In the Spring issue of UVA’s alumni magazine, an article on the restoration plans, “This Old Academical Village: Preserving a national treasure,” elicited a number of angry letters-to-the-editor in the magazine’s Summer issue, questioning the wisdom of some of the proposed projects. In particular, alumni criticized plans to attach a “parapet” to Pavilion X and change the colors of the Lawn’s white columns and dark green shutters, arguing that just because Thomas Jefferson may have wanted them that way doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do....
[for complete article, follow link in headline]
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Four A-School Students Win Kenan Fellowships for Summer 2008
The William R. Kenan Endowment Fund of the Academical Village summer fellowships support educational opportunities for students to conduct research projects that increase public understanding of the Academical Village. Each student receives a $4,000 stipend and his/her faculty advisor receives $1,000. The resulting project is intended for public dissemination at the end of the summer and may include an exhibition, publication, or public event. Kenan Fellowships have been awarded to the following School of Architecture students for summer 2008: Lydia Mattice Brandt (faculty advisors: Elizabeth Meyer and Richard Guy Wilson); Benjamin Trudel (faculty advisor: Peter Waldman); Danielle Willkens (faculty advisor: Peter Waldman); and Edwin Wright (faculty advisor: Phoebe Crisman.Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Prof. Richard Guy Wilson Authors Book on Harbor Hill House
Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History Richard Guy Wilson is the author of the new book, "Harbor Hill: Portrait of a House" (Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, in association with W.W. Norton & Co., February, 2008) which describes the rise and fall of the famous estate designed by Stanford White at the beginning of the 20th century.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Commonwealth Prof. Richard Guy Wilson Co-edits New Book on Colonial Revivalism that Includes Alumni Essayists
Recreating the American Past: Essays on the Colonial Revival is a new book published by University of Virginia Press and edited by Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History Richard Guy Wilson, alumna Shaun Eyring (MLA'87) and Kenny Marotta. The various scholars included in this volume examine the causes behind the persistence of colonialism in modern day architecture, landscape architecture, art and other forms of cultural expression.Among the essayists are alumni Eve Barsoum (BP'88, MAH'93), Sara Butler (MAH'96, PhD'01), Barbara Powers (MAH'83), Elizabeth Sargent (MLA'91) and Jacqueline Taylor (MAH'00).