HYLAND
Nancy's list of forty-nine books accompanies this article,
widely diverse, in subject, period, genre and point of view.
Many of them provoke a stimulating imaginary dialogue with
Jefferson. Here are a few.
Thomas Jefferson's great avocation was as architect, and,
were he alive today, certainly he
would have read Le Corbusier's
Towards a New Architecture; its
seven essays constitute perhaps
the most influential twentieth
century text on the subject.
Whether Jefferson would have
admired Le Corbusier's buildings is
only a subject for speculation, but
certainly he would have appreciated
Le Corbusier's arguments for an
architecture that was more than
stylistic experiment or flourish;
an architecture of buildings—and
cities—that would revolutionize
the way citizens interacted with
buildings , a rebirth of architecture
based on function and ancient
tenets of form. Jefferson would likely have appreciated that
one of Le Corbusier's favorite architects was Edwin Lutyens
for whom Jefferson would have felt a forceful empathy. I
recall while dining with a now former Dean of the University
of Virginia's School of Architecture—in her residence, the end
pavilion on the left side of Jefferson's rotunda—her belief that
