Note 89 — CHAPTER 5 THE NEW WORLD
Reading edition
See O’Neal, W. B., Jefferson’s Buildings at the University of Virginia, I, Charlottesville, 1960. Like the hill-top siting of Monticello, Jefferson’s own nearby house—begun before the American Revolution and finally completed only in 1808—this provision of an open end towards the view illustrates his active response to the ideals of the Picturesque. For Monticello, moreover, drawings of Gothick garden fabricks exist. The fact that McKim, Mead & White blocked the view at the bottom of Jefferson’s layout with a new building in the twentieth century is curious evidence of the lack of understanding of the essential qualities of the architecture and planning of this period on the part of even the most sophisticated ‘traditional’ architects—men who professed the greatest admiration for the work of such predecessors as Jefferson and yet proceeded to destroy its essence whenever the opportunity arose!