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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 first library at the University of Virginia was the Rotunda. Rather than a chapel or other religious structure, the university was built around its own library. Thomas Jefferson was deeply engaged in selecting the materials that made up that library's original collection, and in developing the system by which it would be organized.
The University of Virginia’s Rotunda has seemingly been a work-in-progress from the beginning. Designed by the University’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, the Rotunda is the centerpiece of the Academical Village.
1856 Lithograph of the Academical Village (Rotunda, Pavilions, and the Lawn) The history of the University of Virginia opens with its conception by Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of the early 19th century. The university was chartered in 1819, and classes commenced in 1825.
“Jefferson intended the Rotunda to be the central focus of the Academical Village – not only physically by its size, location and architectural presence, but also programmatically by its function as the library and central classroom building that would be used daily by faculty and students,” said David J. Neuman, the architect for the University at the outset of the two-year renovation ...
Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Timeline of the Founding of the University of Virginia. Rotunda of the University of Virginia by John Neilson. On October 6, 1817, the cornerstone for the first building of what one day would be the University of Virginia was laid on a rocky ridge about a mile west of Charlottesville.
Dec 6, 2023 · Cite this page as: Beth Harris, "Rotunda, University of Virginia and Statue of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, Virginia," in Smarthistory, April 10, ...
