Thomas Jefferson

     I really didn't know very much about Jefferson before doing the readings we have for class today besides the fact that he was the third President, wrote the Declaration, and lived at Monticello.  The information I learned from the readings about his passion for architecture and the University of Virginia made me admire him a lot more than I did before.  For one thing, I am extremely impressed that he didn't even begin official work on his idea of the Central College until he was 75 years old.  "Something Very Great and New" mentions that he "rode to the site almost daily that summer, staying home only during the worst thunderstorms" (Crawford, 154).  I don't know many people who can ride horses, although this is a very different era than Jefferson's, but I definitely can't imagine many 75 year old men horseback riding on a daily basis.  Even this simple action shows how much he invests in the things he embarks on.  I liked how he utilized multiple styles and elements of architechture in all the pavilions at the University of Virginia to create an "encyclopedia" of architechture.  He made use of every element that he could, and that increased the value and meaning of the atmosphere he was creating.  Jefferson's very unique style of architechture could certainly be used as a dense fact to point to the shift of the colonies having a very British culture to their own culture for the first time.  Not only did Jefferson build a beautiful university, he began the creation of a new style for America at a time when the new nation was sorely lacking any evidence of creative architechture and a purely American culture.