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

ows of 10 professors’ pavilions with 100 student room. The two wings were 120 feetapart and at the north or closed end he located the library, known as the Rotunda.The south end was left open for further expansion. Behind the two rows of studentrooms and professors’ pavilions were gardens with curvilinear walls and then outerrows of more student rooms and hotels connected by arcades for eating. Acornerstone was laid for the University on 6 October 1817. The complex was builtbetween 1817 and 1825 when the first students entered. In the 1890s after a fire inthe Rotunda the south end was closed off with a complex of buildings.The two campuses while having some similarities also contained majordifferences. Downing after 1821 until the 1950s was essentially two parallel rows ofbuildings while Virginia was a U shaped composition.Another issue is how did Jefferson know of Wilkins’ design? Jefferson lived inFrance between 1784 and 1789 and closely observed architecture. He visited Englandseveral times most notably during the spring of 1786. He visited Oxford (notCambridge) and viewed notable English gardens and a number of houses includingBlenheim and Chiswick, Wilkins’ design is of course much later, 1805–06. A few viewsof the completed Master’s Lodge were published in 1812 and 1814 but they shownothing of the projected scheme. Sometime later a view was published of the longsouth front with three porticos, and also one of the northern entrance, the portico,or propylae. While it is possible that somebody told Jefferson about Wilkins’ scheme,the question remains who? Jefferson was a noted correspondent who kept copies ofall his letters, and along with those who wrote to him. There is no reference inJefferson’s vast correspondence to the Downing scheme, nor to Wilkins, and he neverowned the various books that illustrated it. It is possible he was told about it eitherorally, or in writing, but to date no evidence has been found.More important is that Downing College and the University of Virginia are bothproducts of a classical sensibility. Both Jefferson and Wilkins were classicists but ofdifferent types. They subscribed to the concept that architecture was bound by rulesand concepts that first emerged in Greece, were passed on and elaborated by theRomans, and then re-discovered in the 15th-18th century by architects such asAlberti, Palladio, Jones, Ware, and many others. Classicism meant to both individualsthat correct architecture was governed by the orders, proportion, and it should showsymmetry, balance, hierarchy, and wholeness. Wilkins was a significant re-interpreterof classicism with his books such as Antiquities of Magna Graecia (1806/07) The civilarchitecture of Vitruvius, (1812) and Athneiensia, or remains on the topoqraphy andbuildinqs of Athens (1816). He was a member of the Grecophile group and veryimportant in introducing the Greek Revival into England. Wilkins’ Greek interestmeant he rejected the five orders employed since the Renaissance for a more strictemployment of the three Greek orders. In a sense, Wilkins was avant-garde forhis day.73