I shall live in the hope that the day will come when an opportunity will be given you of finishing the Middle building in a style worthy of the two
wings, and worthy of the first temple dedicated to the sovereignty of the people; embellishing with Athenian taste the course...
I would strongly recommend to their consideration, instead of one immense building, to have a small one for every professorship, arranged at proper distances around a square, or rather three sides of a square, to admit extension, connected by a piazza so that they may go dry from one school to...
I was written to in 1785. (being then in Paris) by Directors appointed to superintend the building of a Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as to a plan, and to add to it one of a prison. thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing into the state an example of architecture in the classic...
I now inclose the drawings you desired. every thing proposed in them is in the plainest style, and will be cheap altho’ requiring skill in the workmanship. without that it will be rendered barbarous in the execution. of one truth I have had great experience that ignorant workmen are always...
I would advise you to cover with tin, instead of shingles. it is the lightest, & most durable cover in the world. we know that it will last 100. years, & how much more we do not know.
I have examined carefully all the antient Corinthians in my possession, and observe that Palladio, as usual, has given the finest members of them all in the happiest combination.
could the dead feel any interest in Monuments or other remembrances of them ... The following would be to my Manes the most gratifying. On the grave a plain die or cube of 3.f without any mouldings, surmounted by an Obelisk of 6.f. height, each of a single stone: on the faces of the Obelisk the...
I have frequently heard Mr Jefferson say that this germ of a fondness for building, was developed in him by the accidental circumstance of his purchasing a book on Architecture, when at College from an old drunken Cabinetmaker who still resided near the College gate in my time & whom I...