The Architecture of Jefferson Country: Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Virginia
Professor K. Edward Lay gives us not only a splendid county architectural history but a rich and detailed local context for Jefferson's Monticello and the University of Virginia, which he rightly calls 'two of the world's great examples of the building arts.'.(William Seale, author ofThe President's House)The Architecture of Jefferson Country is an amazing compendium of research and documentation and a model study of a county's architectural legacy. Albemarle County's architecture mirrors national trends, but also from its soil sprang some of the United States' most refined and historically significant creations and styles. From Thomas Jefferson's important essays at Monticello and the University of Virginia to the sophisticated work of twentieth-century Colonial Revivalists, Albemarle County and Charlottesville contain critically important architecture of interest to the entire nation, indeed, to the world.(Richard Guy Wilson, author of Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village: The Creation of an Architectural Masterpiece and coauthor of The Making of Virginia Architecture)In The Architecture of Jefferson Country Professor Lay draws upon decades of fieldwork and research to provide a detailed portrait of the architectural riches of Albemarle County and Charlottesville. The generous illustrations—old and new photographs, and drawings of floor plans and architectural features—demonstrate the quality and diversity of local building from the eighteenth century into the twentieth, with special emphasis on the nineteenth century. Clearly, Monticello and the University of Virginia are stars in a remarkable constellation.(Catherine Bishir, author ofNorth Carolina Architecture)Thomas Jefferson is as significant to Charlottesville and the United States as Palladio to Vicenza and Italy. This welcome study expands and deepens our understanding of our most important American architect.(Michael Dennis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)