Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia: Planning the Academic Village

Abstract

Thomas Jefferson's arrangement of buildings around an open lawn at the University of Virginia represents an innovative approach to collegiate planning. Yet it is not this plan but the individual structures that have dominated architectural discussions of the university. While prototypes for the latter have been meticulously researched, the origins of the university plan have remained relatively unexplored. Focusing on the University of Virginia as an institutional building type, this study relates its plan to hospital and school designs available to Jefferson through either his library or professional contacts. It reveals his appreciation of the university as a self-contained community-the academic village-and his sensitivity to the effect of the architectural arrangement on education, discipline, health, and morale.