CHAPTER 11

For the young democracy he had worked so tirelessly to establish, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) envisioned an agrarian economy based on private land ownership. That vision took on a distinctly personal style at Monticello (1771–82), Jefferson's own residence and working farm set amidst the gentle slopes of the countryside near Charlottesville, Virginia. Inspired by the same Classical ideals and iconography that fired the passions and imagination of Jacques-Louis David and his countrymen, Jefferson expressed his own multifaceted personality through many fascinating details in the building's design. The overall cross-axial plan of Monticello, however, was derived from a Georgian protype in Robert Morris's Select Architecture (1755), while its façade was modeled after an illustration in Palladio's Quattro libri (appendix 1, no. 15).¹

Some 2,400 years after it first appeared on the Acropolis at Athens, the Parthenon rose anew in Nashville for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition of 1897 (appendix 1, no. 16).

William C. Smith's replica of the great temple was inexpensively constructed of brick, wood, and plaster, but when it was decided that the structure should become a permanent part of the city's architectural heritage, it was rebuilt in aggregate concrete between 1925 and 1931 under the supervision of Russell Hart. In 1990 Alan LeQuire's recreation of the great Athena Parthenos sculpture was unveiled inside the imposing edifice, which stands as the architectural centerpiece of Centennial Park. The monumental statue was recently polychromed and gilded in a manner believed to be consistent with the chryselephantine splendor of the lost original.²

The magnificent Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow was designed by Konstantin A. Thon (1839–81) in the traditional Russo-Byzantine style to honor those Russians who had fallen in the War of 1812. The edifice was consecrated in 1883, and became one of the city's most beloved architectural treasures.

On 5 December 1931, following Stalin's express orders, the Cathedral was razed to make way for the projected Palace of the Soviets, a monumental tower-like structure that was to be crowned with a colossus of Vladimir Lenin. At 1,361 feet, it would have been the tallest building on the planet, but by the late 1950s al fresco swimming facilities were built on the cratered site instead.

With the collapse of the Soviet system and popular revival of the Russian Orthodox faith, plans to rebuild the Cathedral were under way by the mid 1990s. Reconstruction was completed in 1999, under the auspices of architect M. M. Posokhin, whose design team worked directly from Thon's extant drawings as well as a variety of other archival materials to ensure the greatest possible fidelity to the original (appendix 1, no. 17).³