1
2
3
Jefferson via Eisenman
contemporary reception of Palladian
proportional theory used by Jefferson in the
Academical Village
Megan Friedman
Peter Waldman, advisor
William R. Kenan Endowment Fund of the
Academical Village
Summer 2016
1
2
3
Villa Emo, Palladio, The Four Books on Architecture, 133
Pavilion III, Jefferson, reproduced in Jefferson and Palladio, 168
Villa Emo, Eisenman, Palladio Virtuel, 130
2
Contents
Introduction
Sketches
Pavilion III Analysis
Conclusions
Bibliography
3
4
6
12
14
15
Introduction
In 1570, Andrea Palladio first published I quattro libri dell’architettura (The Four Books on
Architecture). This treatise is replete with proportional rules and systems for the design and construction
of Classical buildings. Palladio’s writings and accompanying illustrations became widely popular amongst
European neo-classicists for its purity and clarity. By the 18th century, his work had grown in popularity
and extended to North America, most notably influencing Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s seminal
architects.
Jefferson loved Palladio and his work, once even referring to him as the Bible.1 By the age of twentyfour, Jefferson had already read Palladio in its original Italian and named his house, Monticello, after
Palladio’s work. So, when it came time to design his new university, Jefferson of course turned to Palladio
for inspiration. Though no longer his only source, Palladio was the standard reference for Jefferson in the
later years of his career. When designing the Academical Village in 1817, he wrote to James Madison:
We are sadly at a loss here for a Palladio. I had three different editions, but they are at Washington, and nobody in this part of the country has one unless you have. If you have, you will greatly aid us by letting us have the use of it for a year to come.2
Undoubtedly, Jefferson referenced the Quattro Libri in his design of the Lawn. In his treatise, Palladio
“communicated an idea of architecture as a system able to express the mathematics of ancient Roman
architecture, made up of constructional blocks (rooms, colonnades, stairs, portals, and windows) bound by
rules, types and proportional ratios.”3 Jefferson, convinced that this treatise was an efficient tool to provide
three-dimensional control over a building, set out to create a new typology of education at the University of
Virginia. But to what extent are Palladio’s designs replicated in Jefferson’s?
In order to answer this question, I turned to a contemporary source—Peter Eisenman. In 2013,
Eisenman exhibited his research on Palladio’s villas at the Yale School of Architecture. Eisenman looks
past the exhausted study of ideal proportions and symmetry, and instead focuses on the more sophisticated
layering of spaces and interrelations in Palladio’s villas. Instead of studying the intricate details of the
Classical Orders, Eisenman looks at the overarching layout of a villa and the intentional layering created by
Palladio. He proposes “a complex Palladio of indeterminate internal relationships, not founded on a known,
classical language, but rather oscillating between possible interpretations of a hypothetical virtual as
opposed to an ideal norm.”4 In his study of twenty villas, Eisenman subverts the claims of a static geometry
in Palladio’s villas and instead looks to the “virtual” conditions of these Palladian spaces.
In 1570, Palladio published his treatise. In 1817, Jefferson, through analog techniques, referenced
Palladio in his designs. In 2013, Eisenman, through digital techniques, re-evaluated Palladio. This research
aims to reinterpret Jefferson’s work as it relates to Palladio using the same digital techniques as Eisenman
to see how extensive Jefferson’s references are.
1
2
3
4
Beltramini, Guido. “Jefferson and Palladio,” Jefferson and Palladio, 23
Qtd. in Id. 31
Id. 32
4
Eisenman, Peter. Palladio Virtuel, 31.
Palladio
Jefferson
1570
Eisenman
1817
2013
1 analog
3 reinterpretation
2
5
digital
Sketches
This research began by studying Palladian spaces in the Veneto region in Northern Italy. By visiting
these iconic spaces, I was able to have a corporeal and tangible understanding of the proportions discussed,
critiqued, and analyzed by Eisenman and Jefferson. Standing in the spaces and measuring the proportions
by hand allowed me to understand the proportional theories used by Palladio and Jefferson in a more
physical manner.
Scaleta to Monte Berico: entire space built off of proportioning of the capital
6
7
8
Comparison of interior axes in Villa Rotonda
9
Villa Rotonda
10
Study of proportional system of Palazzo Porto - Corinthian Order
11
Eisenman’s Analysis
The choice to study Jefferson through Eisenman was a deliberate one because of Eisenman’s unique
analysis of Palladian villas. While historians like Colin Rowe have often looked at Palladio as concerned
with absolute geometric ideas of symmetry and proportion, Eisenman attempts to understand Palladio’s
relational and topological ideas of location and adjacency. He maintains that, within Palladio’s projects, “a
given architectural unity is always fictitious, fabricated by Western metaphysics to sustain ideas of truth,
reality, and origin”1 and instead Palladio introduces “overlaps and superpositions as a blurring of one space
over another, thus making the relationship between spaces—rather than the geometry of individual spaces
themselves—more important.”2
The following analysis replicates Eisenman’s geometric analysis of the Palladian villas. It acts as
a critique of the banal nine-square analysis, which gives little theoretical insight to the work. Instead,
Eisenman presents a series of geometrical diagrams that assert the heterogeneity of space within the
villas. These diagrams begin with a square “drawn to define as closely as possible the literal limits of the
plan. The subsequent shifting front to back and side to side and scaling of the original square reveals the
impossibility of reducing the plans to a single, synthetic geometric diagram.”3 Using these same methods,
I have diagrammed the plan of Pavilion III to see if Jefferson used the same dynamism and heterogeneity in
his work.
1
2
3
Eisenman, Palladio Virtuel, 18
Id. 21
Id. 27
Pavilion III
Pavilion III was the second of the pavilions to be constructed on the Lawn of the University of Virginia
in 1819. Jefferson designed the first three pavilions as physical models of the Classical Orders (Doric, Ionic,
and Corinthian), with Pavilion III representing the Corinthian Order, the most ornate of the three. Jefferson
was very explicit about duplicating Palladio’s dimensions for the Corinthian Order, stating, “I have examined
carefully all the antient Corinthians in my profession, and observe that Palladio, as usual, has given the
finest members of them all in the happiest combination.”1 I chose to analyze this pavilion because of its
conspicuous Palladian references in ornamentation. Eisenman’s analyses eschew ornamentation, so looking
at the pavilion, stripped of its ornament, will reveal if Jefferson’s layout is inherently Palladian or if it reveals
a more complex system.
1
Qtd. in Beltramini 32
12
Geometric Diagrams
The first diagram shows an internal
square that organizes the central
lecture room and the back hallway
of the dining room. This reading
is subtle, but does not account
for the entrance hall, portico, and
remaining portion of the dining
room.
The second diagram uses a square
of the same proportions but shifts to
reveal the relationship of the portico
and lecture room as it connects to
the adjacent student room.
The third diagram expands the
square to encompass the portico
(excluding the columns), the
entrance hall, and the entire lecture
room.
The last diagram overlays two
squares onto the plan to express
the geometry of the back portion
of the pavilion, including the dining
room, and the relationship of the
back entrance, the front entrance,
and the columns. This diagram
reveals the lateral relationship of
the spaces in the pavilion, though its
ideal is interrupted by the fireplace
wall.
13
Conclusions
In creating these diagrams, I found the overlaying of ideal geometries was forced. Palladio’s villas
elicit a more fluid and facile geometrical analysis of this type. Jefferson’s Pavilion III does not want for
dynamism or heterogeneity, but it does not envelop the same sophisticated spatial propositions as Palladio.
There is no doubt that Jefferson successfully ornamented Pavilion III with the Palladian Corinthian Order, but
“that Jefferson truly reproduced the Palladian building system is questionable, given—among other things—
the lack of correspondence between the internal distribution and the elevations of the buildings.”1 The
layout of this pavilion is not based on a Palladian system. Jefferson was instead influenced by his broader
concepts for academia and American pragmatism. Looking more broadly at the entire Lawn, one can see
that “by balancing the individual power of the parts in the collective dimension, that principle can be seen as
representing the democratic order of the new American nation.”2 While Jefferson appreciated the writings
of Palladio, he designs were more inherently democratic in nature and reflected the future he envisioned for
America.
It should also be noted that Eisenman’s analysis of Palladio is incomplete. It does not include any
sectional or elevation analysis. While planometrically Jefferson’s design is not Palladian, continual analysis
is required beyond Eisenman to determine potential sectional similarities. Eisenman’s analysis of Palladio is
finite, while Jefferson’s analysis is accommodating, including other sources, designers, and concepts.
Palladio’s writings and theories were already built on layers of history, reaching all the way back
to Vitruvius in Antiquity. Jefferson and Eisenman continued this layering of thought and history, and this
layering of theory will continue throughout history, evolving and accommodating new technologies and
cultural ideals.
1
2
Beltramini 33
Id. 47
14
Bibliography
Aureli, Pier Vittorio. “The Geopolitics of the Ideal Villa.” The Possibility of an Aboslute Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.
Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism. New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2008.
Beltramini, Guido and Fulvio Lenzo, eds. Jefferson and Palladio. Milan, Italy: Officina Libraria, 2015.
Fletcher, Rachel. “An American Vision of Harmony: Geometric Proportions in Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of
Virginia.” Nexus Network Journal 5.2 (2003).
Friedman, Megan. “Learning from the Past: Connecting Ideals of Architectural Proportion Between Antiquity, the Renaissance, and
Modernity.” Undergraduate Thesis, Duke University 2015.
Eisenman, Peter. “From Object to Relationship II: Casa Giuliani Frigerio: Giuseppe Terragni Casa Del Fascio.” Perspecta 13 (1971):
36-65. JSTOR. 11 February 2016.
Eisenman, Peter. Palladio Virtuel. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
John G. Waite Associates, Architects. The Rotunda. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008.
Lasala, Joseph Michael. “Jefferson’s Designs for the University of Virginia.” Master of Architectural History Thesis, University of
Virginia School of Architecture, 1992.
Mesick, Cohenn, Wilson, Baker Architects. Pavilion III. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.
Padovan, Richard. Proportion. London: E & FN Spon, 1999.
Palladio, Andrea. The Four Books on Architecture. Trans. Robert Tavernor and Richard Schofield. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2001.
Rossi, Aldo. A Scientific Autobiography. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981.
Rowe, Colin. “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa.” The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays. Cambridge: MIT Press,
1976.
Scholfield, P. H. The Theory of Proportion in Architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.
Veseley, Dalibor and Peter Carl. “An Architecture of Continuity.” AA Files, 1980.
Vitruvius. Ten Books on Architecture. Trans. Ingrid D. Rowland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Wills, Garry. Mr. Jefferson’s University. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2002.
Wilson, Richard Guy. The Campus Guide: University of Virginia. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.
Wilson, Richard Guy, ed. Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009.
Wittkower, Rudolf. “The Changing Concept of Proportion.” Daedalus 89.1 (Winter 1960): 199-215. JSTOR. Web. 11 September 2014.
15