[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.

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