The Lawn
The Lawn, a part of Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village, is a large, terraced grassy court at the historic center of Jefferson's academic community at the University of Virginia. The Lawn and its surrounding buildings, designed by Jefferson, demonstrate Jefferson's mastery of Palladian and Neoclassical architecture, and the site has been recognized as an architectural masterpiece in itself. The Lawn has been designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark District, and is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the original buildings of the University of Virginia and Monticello, Jefferson's nearby residence; this designation is due to the site's architectural and cultural significance.
Jefferson originally designed the Lawn to be the center of the university, and as such it is surrounded by housing for students and faculty. Its most famous building is The Rotunda, which sits at the north end of the site, opposite Old Cabell Hall. Framing the other two sides of the Lawn are ten Pavilions, where faculty reside in the upper two floors and teach on the first, as well as 54 Lawn rooms, where carefully selected undergraduates reside in their final year. Being selected as a Lawn Resident in a student's fourth year is considered one of the university's most prestigious honors.
Opposite the Pavilions and Lawn rooms are ten gardens, and similar to the Pavilions, each garden is designed in a distinct way; no two gardens are the same. The outermost row of buildings on either side constitute the edge of the Academical Village; these are known as The Range and house graduate students.
The Lawn has served as the University of Virginia's symbolic center since the university was founded in 1819. It annually serves as the site of the university's graduation ceremonies, as well as various events throughout the year.
Description
The Lawn is used to refer either to the original grounds designed by Thomas Jefferson for the University of Virginia, or specifically to the grassy field around which the original university buildings are arrayed. The Lawn consists of four rows of colonnades on which alternate student rooms and larger buildings. The inner rank of colonnades, facing the central Lawn proper, contains ten Pavilions and 54 student rooms, while the outer rank, facing outward, contain six Hotels and another 54 student rooms. At the head of the colonnades, facing south down the Lawn is the Rotunda, a one-half scale copy of the Pantheon in brick with white columns, that originally held the university's library.There are a total of 206 columns surrounding the Lawn: 16 on The Rotunda, 38 on the Pavilions, and 152 on the walkways. The columns are of varying orders according to the formality and usage of the space, with Corinthian columns on the exterior of the Rotunda giving way to Doric, Ionic, and Composite orders inside; Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian on each of the pavilions; and a relatively humble Tuscan colonnade along the Lawn walkways.
History
Jefferson's design
Jefferson's design for the Lawn sought to find an alternative to traditional single-building college architecture, such as that he experienced as a student at the College of William and Mary, due to its being "noisy, unhealthy, vulnerable to fires, and affording little privacy." The overall model for the Lawn is similar to, and may have been influenced by, Joseph Jacques Ramée's design for Union College and Benjamin Latrobe's design for a military academy, as well as by the designs of Palladio and by his own house, Monticello. Along the legs of the U, the colonnades provide sheltered, but outdoor, communication between the pavilions and the student rooms, and while everything in the Lawn communicates with the Lawn or the outside world, there is privacy afforded by the walled gardens.Jefferson separated the buildings of the lawn into ten units, or Pavilions, to reflect his classification of the branches of learning, and designed the relationship between them and the rest of the Lawn. Each of the ten Pavilions has a unique design, intended to give individual dignity to each branch of study, and the whole was intended to serve as a sort of outdoor classroom for architectural study, as he wrote to William Thornton, architect of the United States Capitol:
Thornton obliged with designs for two pavilions, one of which was adapted for the design of Pavilion VII, the first to be built. Jefferson also solicited designs from Benjamin Latrobe, who had worked with Jefferson on the chambers for the United States House of Representatives. Latrobe responded with a sketch showing the plan of the university, with a domed structure resembling Palladio's Villa Capra "La Rotonda", and sent a second large drawing in October 1817 showing at least five Pavilion elevations, and maybe ten. It is believed that Latrobe's drawings were used for the designs of Pavilions III, V, IX and X. Further, it is speculated that many of the eastern Pavilions were based on Latrobe's designs, as Jefferson prepared the drawings for all five buildings in a mere three weeks. Throughout the process, Jefferson adapted the designs to fit the site, adjusting the width, specifying the entablature, and providing the detailed design of the interior of the Rotunda.
The area between the Pavilions and the Ranges was designated as garden space in Thomas Jefferson's original plans. The current design of the gardens is a result of an initiative begun by University president Colgate Darden to return them to something approximating the original Jeffersonian design.
The overall effect of the different portions of the Lawn, the Rotunda, Pavilions, student rooms, and the physical site, is, in the words of Garry Wills, "paradoxical... regimentation and individual expression... hierarchical order and relaxed improvising.... But it is the reconciliation of these apparent irreconcilables that is the genius of the system."
Early inhabitants of the Lawn: Students, professors, and slaves
The original 108 student rooms were doubles, permitting the housing of up to 216 students. In practice, with enrollment at the university considerably lower during the first sessions, the dormitory rooms adjacent to the Pavilions were used in some cases by the professors until 1854. As the university's enrollment grew, from 128 students in 1842–1843 to 604 in 1861, students began to seek lodging in University-approved boarding houses in addition to the Lawn. Additional changes to the makeup of the residents included the use of Lawn rooms as barracks for officer candidates during World War II, a shift from double to single occupancy in 1959, and the arrival of the first women undergraduates on the Lawn in 1972.The Pavilions were designed as both housing for professors and as classroom space. The original plan for the university described the Pavilions as "a distinct pavilion or building for each separate professorship; these to be arranged around a square; each pavilion to contain a school-room and two apartments for the accommodation of the professor's family, and other reasonable conveniences." However, due to a combination of practical concerns over the ability of the first-floor lecture rooms to accommodate enough students for large lectures, and objections from the families of the professors that the space was required for entertaining, students rarely had access to the rooms.
In addition to the professors and their families, in the pre-Civil War days the Pavilions also housed the slaves of the professors. While University students were prohibited by the University's Enactments from bringing their personal slaves with them, professors could and did own slaves, who were quartered in Pavilion or Hotel cellars or in outbuildings. In one case, Lewis Commodore, a slave owned by the university, was granted accommodations within the Rotunda itself, only to be turned out by the Board of Visitors two years later.
The Rotunda annex and fire of 1895
As the size of the student body increased, the Rotunda was extended with a structure called the Annex, also known as "New Hall," on its north side in 1853. The Annex, which extended from the original north façade of the Rotunda, added about of classroom and meeting space, including a Public Hall that seated 1200 people.In 1895, the Rotunda was entirely gutted by a fire that started in faulty electrical wiring in the Public Hall of the Annex. University students saved what was, for them, the most important item within the Rotunda—a life-size likeness of Mr. 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, the faculty drew up a recommendation to the Board of Visitors, recommending 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.
After the Rotunda fire: Stanford White buildings
Following the burning of the Rotunda in 1895, the firm of McKim, Mead, and White and its architect Stanford White was hired to rebuild the Rotunda and to create new academic buildings to compensate for the loss of the Rotunda annex. White created three academic buildings, , Rouss Hall, and Cabell Hall at the base of the Lawn, enclosing the southern view which had previously been open to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The creation of this building group enclosed the Lawn and set its dimensions permanently; subsequent development of the university has happened outside of the boundaries of the Academical Village.After the new academic buildings were erected, a statue of Homer by sculptor and Virginia native Moses Jacob Ezekiel was given to the university in 1907 and placed in the quadrangle in front of Old Cabell Hall. Ezekiel also created the bronze statue of Jefferson on a bell-shaped pedestal that stands in front of the north stairs of the Rotunda. During the same period, statues of Jefferson and George Washington were added to the south of Pavilions IX and X, facing each other across the Lawn to the north of the Rouss/Cabell/Cocke quadrangle. The Jefferson statue, a replica of the Karl Bitter sculpture made for the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, was added in 1915, and the replica of Houdon's statue of George Washington was added later.