Thomas Jefferson's Vision
Thomas Jefferson's design for the University of Virginia is considered the seminal achievement in American campus planning. The design is recognized for its clarity of composition, the integration of the buildings' designs into the Academical Village experience, the role of landscape and site in defining relationships among buildings, and the utopian academic program that integrated student, faculty and academic life.
In musing about the design, Jefferson wrote in 1810:
I consider the common plan followed in this country, but not in others, of making one large and expensive building, as unfortunately erroneous. It is infinitely better to erect a small and separate lodge for each professor, with only a hall below for his class, and two chambers above for himself, joining these lodges with a barracks for a certain portion of the students, opening into a covered way to give a dry communication between all the schools. The whole of these arranged around an open square of grass and trees would make it what it should be in fact, an academical village instead of a common den of noise, filth and fetid air.
Reference: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: HISTORIC PRESERVATION FRAMEWORK PLAN 2007