September 4, 2023
On a scorching hot Labor Day, we found ourselves In Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the University of Virginia, commonly known as UVA. We headed down to the pedestrian mall, in the historic part of town.
But with most places closed due to the holiday and temperatures soaring into the high nineties there weren’t too many people about (apart from the occasional homeless person trying to keep out of the sun).
With nothing much going on downtown, we headed over to the UVA campus, which was much more lively with students heading between classes, carrying their mandatory backpacks. We tried, unsuccessfully, to remember if backpacks were a thing during our college years. UVA was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and most of the architecture is unsurprisingly, Jeffersonian, the mix of neo-classicism and neo-palladianism that America’s third president favored. It is a massive campus, taking up 1,135 acres and catering to over 25,000 students.
At the center of the University is its most iconic building, The Rotunda. It was designed by Jefferson, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome and accommodated the University’s library. The campus was unique at the time, as other universities in the English-speaking world surrounded a Church. Thus, to many, The Rotunda, symbolizes Jefferson’s belief in the separation of church and education.
The Rotunda looks over a large lawn that is framed on two sides by The Range, which includes rooms for a select group of 54 fourth-year undergraduate students. Each room includes its own rocking chairs. The rooms were included in Jefferson’s original design and have housed many famous Americans, including President Woodrow Wilson and writer Edgar Allan Poe. In fact, Poe’s room has been preserved. Fittingly, for a writer who specialized in horror, it is number 13.
Here are a couple of other Jeffersonian buildings that we passed on campus.
There is a memorial to the over 4,000 enslaved laborers who built and maintained the University. Completed in 2020, its beautiful simplicity reminded us of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC.
Mal and Lauren 