He incorporated many French design ideas and conveniences he had observed in Paris, such as floor-to-ceiling windows, alcove beds, a skylight, and an indoor privy. Jefferson’s Poplar Forest is a quintessential villa, perhaps the first in America.Īt Poplar Forest, Jefferson also utilized many of the architectural ideas he had collected throughout his years of study and his travels abroad. Since antiquity, the villa has remained remarkably consistent in form and purpose: a home in the country designed for pleasure and repose, a place where owner and guests can forget the cares of the everyday world. Poplar Forest was the embodiment of a classical idea: the Roman villa retreat. At Poplar Forest, elements from ancient, Renaissance Palladian and 18th century French architecture, as well as British and Virginian design, fuse into a harmonious whole. The house is highly idealistic in concept with only a few concessions to practicality, and it is so perfectly suited to Jefferson alone that later owners found it difficult to inhabit. He had one final opportunity to synthesize all that he had learned, and no one to please but himself. In 1806, Jefferson began the construction of his octagonal brick house at Poplar Forest-the centerpiece of an intricate villa design.īy the time Jefferson constructed his retreat at Poplar Forest, he was in his sixties. Jefferson owned several plantations but built elaborate houses for his personal use at only two of them-Monticello and Poplar Forest. He also influenced the planning of Washington, D.C. Poplar Forest, the Virginia State Capitol, his home at Monticello and the University of Virginia are considered to be his masterpieces. Jefferson also looked to his contemporary world for ideas.Īs a young man, Jefferson abhorred the architecture of Virginia and set himself the task of upgrading it. His “bible” was Andrea Palladio’s The Four Books of Architecture, which taught him the rules of classical design.
Thomas Jefferson, University of Virginia, 1817-22.
Palazzo Thiene begun 1542, Palladio, Vicenza. Another source may have been Andrea Palladios Four Books of Architecture, a work Jefferson deemed to be his 'bible.' In Book One of the 1721 Leoni translation, Palladio describes the ideal setting for a country house, his famous Villa Rotonda near Vicenza: 'Its situation is as advantageous and delicious as can be desired, being seated on a.
There were no architecture schools in colonial Virginia, so Jefferson learned architecture from books. Palladios trips to Rome, 1541, 1547, 1554 The Antiquities of Rome, 1554 Four Book on Architecture, 1570.
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