Institutional icon: despite changes, campus icon maintains historical integrity

Journal of Property Management, July-August, 2006 by Diana Mirel

Inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, the Rotunda at University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., has maintained its iconic presence for almost 200 years. More than just an exquisite university building, the Rotunda symbolizes the university's rich history and progressive educational ideals.

The University of Virginia was founded and designed by Thomas Jefferson in the early 1800s. It was the first university in the country to separate church and education, and the first to offer students a chance to study non-traditional specialty subjects like architecture, astronomy and philosophy.

The Rotunda, completed in 1826--shortly after Jefferson's death--was the last of Jefferson's designs to be built at the school. He wanted the Rotunda to represent the "authority of nature and power of reason."

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While American university campuses at the time were affiliated with various Protestant denominations and most had a church as their main architectural focal point, the University of Virginia was unique because the buildings surrounded the Rotunda, which at the time housed the library and several large classrooms.

"It was the intellectual center of the university," said Brian Hogg, senior historic preservation planner at the University of Virginia. "It had an iconic physical presence, as well as a really important academic and intellectual role at the university."

While the Rotunda is still the most recognizable building on the campus, it is just one of the Jefferson-designed buildings in a complex known as the Academical Village. The Academical Village is one of four man-made sites in the United States named as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

"The buildings are widely recognized as one of the greatest architectural achievements in universities to date," Hogg said. "They are treasured partly because they are just wonderful buildings, but also because they provide a direct and tangible link to the creation of the university, to Thomas Jefferson and to the ideals behind the founding of the university.

But through the years, the Rotunda has seen many physical and functional changes. In 1885 the building caught fire, gutting the interior and destroying the dome. The university then brought in architect Stanford White, who drastically changed the interior of the building, but kept the exterior of the building in the spirit of Jefferson's design.

One of White's major interior changes was shifting Jefferson's three-story design to a simpler two-story configuration. In the late 1930s, the university moved the library to a new location, but classes and educational events still met in the building.

In anticipation of the Fourth of July bicentennial in the 1970s, the university decided to return the Rotunda's interior appearance to its Jeffersonian design. White's interior was removed, and the floor he eliminated was reinstated. Despite its many facelifts and transformations, the Rotunda has maintained its stature on campus, Hogg said.

"All this time, it really is the symbol or the icon of the university," he said.

Today, the 77-foot building, in both height and diameter, is used for a variety of public functions. The Dome Room--the former library space--is used for lectures and dinners. Several of the former classrooms are used as meeting rooms for the board of trustees. Ph.D students defend their dissertations in a room within the Rotunda. The building is also a tourist attraction. The university offers scheduled tours of the building, as well as allows tourists to walk through the building on their own.

To date, the university has not made any solid decisions about new renovations and repairs for the Rotunda, but if history is any guide, the changes will combine the best of modern technology and skill with the best of Jefferson's vision.

"It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of this building as a symbol of this institution," Hogg said. "Because it is so important, everyone has worked really hard to tend to it carefully and that shows. An icon really does get its due."

Diana Mirel is a contributing writer for JPM. Questions regarding this article can be sent to kgunderson@irem.org.