Following the Baroque with its fantastic decorations and spectacular effects, the need for harmony and elegance arose under artists, especially under European architects. The classic antiquity was again taken as model. During the Age of Enlightenment, high value was attached to archaeological reconstruction and rational approach. The style which preceded neo-classicism first arose in the United Kingdom, and was inspired by the publications of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio, who was strongly inspired by classical architecture in the 16th century. His conceptions played a major role in American architecture of the 18th and 19th century. Well-known examples are the Capitol, the White House, and the university of Virginia, designed by later president Thomas Jefferson.

University of Virginia: Architect and statesman Thomas Jefferson was the third president (1801-1809) of the United States of America. Together with Latrobe, he designed the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Construction began in 1822, and the campus was completed in 1826. The Rotunda dominates the university grounds. Threw a simple pronaos, one enters the villa with its three oval rooms and its beautiful, round library.

The Rotunda was designed to be the architectural and intellectual heart of his academic village. Jefferson modelled the Rotunda after the Pantheon in Rome, reducing the measurements so that the building would not draft the neighbouring Pavilions.

The Lawn at the university extends from the Rotunda at the north end to Cabell Hall at the south. It is framed on either side by the Pavilions, which house distinguished faculty members, and living quarters for student leaders.

Monticello: Thomas Jefferson spent most of his life designing and redesigning his house, Monticello, which was constructed over a period of fourty years. He said, "architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favourite amusements."

Jefferson inherited sizable property in Albemarble Country, Virginia, from his father, Peter Jefferson, who along with Joshue Fry created the most accurate map of Virginia of their time. In May 1768, the 25 year old Thomas Jefferson began to level the already gentle top of a 987 foot high mountain, where he intended to build his home. He called it Monticello, which means "little mountain" in old Italian.

The first Monticello: The self-taught architect designed Monticello after antient and Renaissance models, and in particular after the work of Italian architect Andrea Palladio. In location - a frontier mountaintop - and in design - a Renaissance villa - intentionally it was a far cry from the other American homes of its day. Commenting on buildings in Williamsburg, Virginia, Jefferson wrote, "the genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land."

Work on Monticello was largely completed in 1782: the first floor of the house featured a bedroom, parlor, drawing room, and dining room. As the house neared completion, however, Jefferson's wife died, leaving him, as he wrote, with "a blank which I had not the spirits to fill up."

In 1784, Jefferson was appointed to diplomatic service in France. While there, he was a keen observer of architecture, writing that he was "violently smitten with the hotel de Salm" in Paris, and noting that the Maison Carrée at Nîmes was "the best morsel of ancient architecture now remaining." Both buildings influenced Jefferson's later work: the Maison Carrée became a model for his plans for the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, and the Hôtel de Salm strongly influenced his redesign of Monticello.

As early as 1790, Jefferson began planning revisions for his Albemarble Country home, based in part on what he had observed in France. In 1796, walls of the original home were knocked down to make room for an expansion that would essentially double the floorplan of the house. The new plan called for a hallway connecting the older rooms to a new set of rooms on the east. The second Monticello was largely completed in 1809, the year Jefferson retired from Presidency.

The second Monticello: Among the many French elements that Jefferson incorporated into the second Monticello, the most dramatic was the dome placed over the already-existing Parlor, making it the first American home with such a feature. He crafted the building to give the appearance - as he had seen at the Hôtel de Salm - that the three-story building was only one story tall. To achieve this effect, windows in the second-story bedroom are on the floor level, so that from the outside, they appear to be an extension of the first-floor windows. On the third floor, light is provided by skylights invisible from the ground. Alcove beds and indoor privies are two more French features incorporated into Monticello.

Jefferson's revisions from the home called for even smaller stairways than he had used in the original design. Two steeps and narrow stairways, measuring only twenty-four inches wide, provided access to the upper bedrooms. These stairways widen to thirty inches as they descend to the basement level, thus affording more space for tasks such as bringing food from the kitchen to the dining room. Jefferson believed that small stairways saved both money and "space that would make a good room in every story."

"Essay in architecture": Jefferson called Monticello his "essay in architecture," and construction continued on the mountaintop well into his retirement. In 1809 - fourty years after work began on Monticello - his workers completed the basement-level dependencies, such as the kitchen, smokehouse, and storage rooms. The final product is a unique blend of beauty and function that combines the best elements of the ancient and old worlds with a fresh American perspective. In 1782, the marquis de Chastellux visited the "first" Monticello and wrote a brief description of it for his Travels in North-America.

"My object in giving these details is not to describe the house, but to prove that it resembles none of the others seen in this country; so that it may be said that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather."