211075 Downing Record 07 - Downing College - University of ...

200 Years the Symbiotic Architecture of Wilkins’Downing College and Jefferson’s University ofVirginiaA summary of an address to the Fellowship by Professor Richard Wilson, ThomasJefferson Visiting Fellow, on May 16th 2007.Richard Guy Wilson holds the Commonwealth Professor’s Chair in ArchitecturalHistory at the University of Virginia (Thomas Jefferson’s University) inCharlottesville, Virginia, where he is also Chair of the Department of ArchitecturalHistory. His specialty is the architecture, design and art of the 18th to the 20thcentury. He was the College’s 2007 Thomas Jefferson Visiting Fellow.The idea of a connection between the design of William Wilkins’ Downing Collegeand Thomas Jefferson’s the University of Virginia has been noted by numerousscholars and observers in recent years. Frequently it is asserted that Wilkins’ designmust have influenced Jefferson since they appear so similar and also they date fromapproximately the same time period: Downing 1805–1821, and Virginia, 1814–1825.A comparison of aerial views of both complexes shows the parallels. Both are largethree sided compositions with houses for professors and students stretching alongthe sides and a major structure-chapel at Downing-a library for Virginia-in the centreof the enclosed (north in both cases) end. The problem with this art historical typeof visual—”this looks like that, hence they must be related” analysis, is that it ignorescertain facts.Wilkins’ original design for Downing was quite different in that it was a giantquadrangle measuring 350 by 300 feet with a giant portico or propylea at the northend, and the library, hall and chapel at the south end, with the housing for studentsand faculty around the sides. However, this complex was never built; only the eastand west sides or ranges were constructed between 18 May 1807 when the cornerstone was laid and 1821 when building ceased. Downing only took its present formin the 1950s when the north end with the chapel in the centre was constructed afterdesigns by Sir Herbert Baker and Alex Scott. They loosely interpreted Wilkins’classicism but the location of the facilities was very different from his originalintentions.Jefferson’s design for the University of Virginia began in 1814 with a proposalfor the Albemarle Academy to be located near Charlottesville. It was for a large-257yards (771 feet) across three sided complex of nine professors’ houses-or pavilions ashe called them, interspersed among 196 rooms for students, the whole connected bya covered walkway. In the next several years Jefferson modified the plan when heobtained a site-which was a ridge where the big plan would not fit, to two parallel72