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The Master Plan for the Grounds

Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village is admired the world over not only as a great work of architecture but also as a model of urban planning. Conceived as a coherent community of students and scholars, it represents an ideal setting for nurturing the mind. The physical improvements now under way adhere to a carefully conceived fifty-year master plan that, like Mr. Jefferson's Academical Village, supports intellectual and social interaction, as well as collaboration across disciplines. The plan's core principles, which were derived from Jefferson's vision, include the following:

• Preserving Our Architectural Legacy: The University will conserve its historic buildings and landscapes and consolidate new construction within existing boundaries.

• Integrating Mixed Uses: New development will integrate complementary functions such as student and faculty housing, teaching and research, administrative activities, sports and recreation, dining and retail.

• Creating a Walking Environment: New circulation networks will promote walking, cycling, and light transit as primary modes of transportation around Grounds, rather than the automobile.

• Reconnecting All Sectors of the Grounds: The placement of new buildings and circulation systems will reestablish links among the graduate professional schools on North Grounds, the core academic and residential areas on Central Grounds, the varsity athletics complex, and the University Health System.

Protecting a Rich Architectural Heritage

For nearly two decades, the University has been engaged in a pains-taking effort to preserve its Jeffersonian buildings and landscapes. Now we are broadening the scope of this stewardship to encompass all of the historic structures on Grounds.

A new Historic Preservation Master Plan, made possible by the Getty Grant Program of Los Angeles and support from the Hunter and Carl Smith Restoration Fund, will inventory and analyze all 149 of the University's historic properties. They include the work of such celebrated architects as Stanford White, Paul Pelz (designer of the Library of Congress), Henry Bacon (architect of the Lincoln Memorial), Fiske Kimball, and of course, Mr. Jefferson. The plan will determine what makes these structures architecturally significant and will recommend how they should be used and protected.
 

The bond issue also contains $5.7 million for renovation of teaching laboratories in Gilmer Hall, home of the biology and psychology departments, and $4.6 million for the restoration of Fayerweather Hall, which will be devoted to the art history program as part of the Arts Grounds project. The remaining $12.5 million will support various infrastructure improvements.

Also in April, the South Lawn Project, an ambitious effort to provide new or renovated facilities for ten of the College's twenty-six departments, received its largest contribution to date. John L. Nau III (College '68) of Houston and his wife, Bobbie, pledged $8.5 million for a new building for the Corcoran Department of History. Mr. Nau, who earlier funded a professorship and a graduate fellowship in Civil War studies, is the new president of the College Foundation Trustees.

A $5 million pledge from the Beirne Carter Foundation of Richmond took the University a step closer toward funding MR-6, a medical research facility that later received a $20 million commitment from the Board of Visitors. The Beirne Carter Center for Immunology Research will be among the programs occupying the structure, which will help alleviate a shortage of laboratory space.

MR-6 is among the construction projects benefiting from $68 million earmarked for the University in the 2002 general-obligation bond issue. In addition to $24.2 million for the medical research building, the bond measure provides $14.3 million for the South Lawn Project and $7 million for Wilsdorf Hall, a materials science and engineering building. To house the Engineering School's burgeoning nanotechnology programs, part of the Virginia 2020 science and technology initiative, the building is named for the late Heinz G. F. Wilsdorf, former chair of the materials science department, and his wife, Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf, a distinguished materials scientist and a longtime member of the faculty.

The bond issue also contains $5.7 million for renovation of teaching laboratories in Gilmer Hall, home of the biology and psychology departments, and $4.6 million for the restoration of Fayerweather Hall, which will be devoted to the art history program as part of the Arts Grounds project. The remaining $12.5 million will support various infrastructure improvements.
 
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