Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

The house has many interesting features, where things were thought out afresh, rather than having everything done in the conventional and established ways. By laying out all the main rooms on a single level, he avoided the need for a space-consuming ceremonial staircase, and the stairs in the house that lead up to the private bedrooms are narrow and cramped, making rather a point of their utilitarian character. Jefferson’s own bed was built into an alcove that opened into his bedroom on one side and his library on the other. Culturally speaking, the detailed arrangements of the house are idiosyncratic, but the general impression made by the house is very dignified and familiar. The reason for that is that Jefferson chose to adopt the classical language of architecture for his house, and in doing so participated in a culture that traces its roots back to ancient Greece. Jefferson’s house has echoes of other buildings in it, buildings that belong to the Western tradition. His design for the Virginia State Capitol was a copy of the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, the best preserved of all the Roman temples (Figure 13). The central building on The Lawn at the University of Virginia was adapted from another Roman monument, the Pantheon in Rome (Figure 14). We can analyse the possible sources that are combined in his house, or just enjoy it without being particularly well informed about it. Even without any detailed and particular knowledge, we will understand that this is a building with some authority, that belongs to a tradition of high-status buildings with which we are familiar, and which therefore feels stable and authoritative, rather than being confrontational and challenging. The building asserts its claim on the landscape without anxiety or heightened emotion, but calmly as if it is naturally and appropriately a seat of power. Given that the practical politics of its designer were revolutionary, this sort of expression is not to be taken for granted. By describing the house in this way, I hope I make it clear that there is scope for alternative interpretations. If I do not belong to this ‘Western civilization’ then I may well see things quite differently, particularly if my ancestors previously made use of this land and lived here without claiming to own it. Instead of it seeming authoritative and familiar, it would then seem alien and arrogant. If I were descended from slaves who worked on the estate, then I might see the architecture as symbolic of oppression.

A traditional education in the arts has often inculcated a familiarity with acknowledged masterpieces. Even though ‘educated taste’ in these matters can be very different from ‘popular taste’, this does not mean that it need feel forced and affected. For someone who is immersed in a tradition, the response will be felt as a spontaneous and natural reaction to the building in question, even if it is a tradition that has been learnt from books, rather than picked up unconsidered in the course of daily life. Whether the educated or the popular taste gains the upper hand in a given situation has more to do with cultural politics than it does with right and wrong.

Which earlier buildings of the Western tradition does Jefferson’s Monticello call to mind? It is a classic example of a villa in a landscape setting, the symmetrical pavilion with a central entrance through an arrangement of classical columns. They were built throughout northern Europe in the 18th century, and here is Jefferson building his own version in Virginia. The examples that he would have studied would have been mostly Italian, and in books. Jefferson did not travel widely in his youth, and learnt by reading. He taught himself Italian from books, and he owned a copy of Palladio’s Four Books of Architecture in an Italian edition, calling it his architectural ‘Bible’. He also had other illustrated books about architecture, by English architects. When the Marquis de Chastellux visited Monticello in 1782 he said that the house was unlike any other in America, and that ‘Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather’. In other words he was working in a tradition of architecture that Chastellux recognized as his own, that of the European élite.