The photograph is taken from the base of Mount Rushmore. Jefferson seems to be looking out across the plains of South Dakota southeast to his beloved Monticello in the forested hills of Virginia. 

 

He died July 4th, 1826. He wrote his own epitaph. 

 
Jefferson is celebrated as one of America's most revered patriots, Father of the Declaration of Independence, Father of human rights, Third President of these United States, Champion of State's Rights, Father of the modern university, Proponent of the emancipation  of slaves, Admirer of Native American tribalism, Statesman, Lawyer, Diplomat, Writer, Inventor, Farmer and Architect.

 

I see in this stone carved face, as well, a man looking back, sad as he was strong, wishful as he was willful, seeking to see the trajectory of his eighty three years.

For everything Jefferson was, he was also, not.

 

My first clue as to the mind and heart of this most amazing and conflicted man, his statement, "Putting up and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements."

 

To put up architecture, Jefferson believed, one must pull down, the site, the trees, the stones, the nature of the place. His architecture was to be perceived organized and in charge, stately positioned as master and ruler, classically founded on Western Greek Thought and Roman Imperialism. Jefferson embraced and imbued Neo Classism in everything he designed and saw constructed.

 

My second and most powerful clue as to Jefferson's conflict is that his architecture emerged always symmetrical, perfectly symmetrical, stately and strongly symmetrical, static and stoic and solidly predictable, safely and soundly symmetrical.

 

 
The linen page is folded in the middle. It forms the centerline of two equal sides to the home. What is designed on the left is delivered on the right, no confusion, no conjecture, established, permanent, commanding, put up.

 

 

The ancillary buildings to Monticello as well, find themselves positioned, like two ears, perfectly distanced left and right. Even the slave's quarters, placed about an axis connected to the main house, its symmetrical layout about its own court, was subservient to the symmetry of the main house.
 

 

Humans like symmetry because it's familiar, expected. It does not challenge, it informs, it does not deviate, it directs. The viewer is instructed as to the station and position of things and is not encouraged to conjecture, to guess or to hope. It is strong. It is safe.

The comfort of symmetry originates from the manner of our creation. Our physiologies are split symmetrically, our brain is split symmetrically, our perspective, our perception, our basic nature, is split. We exist between reason and want and symmetry is safe.

But, there are two faces to every coin, two competing forces within the man Jefferson and within us all, two opposing sides, perpetually competing and eternally connected and it is not the competition between animal and man. It is between reason and want.

Please understand this one thing. Symmetry is safe but it is dangerously powerful because it can lie.

 
Behind the perfect façade, in the White House, dark things may happen between the West Wing and East.

Jefferson remarked, "Architecture is among the most important arts and it is desirable to introduce taste into an art which shows so much," painting and sculpture are "too expensive for the state of wealth among us. It would be useless, therefore, and preposterous, for us to make ourselves connoisseurs in those arts. They are worth seeing, but not studying."

Jefferson lied or at least, another time, countered himself in writing to his friend James Madison.  "But how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen, unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study and imitation? . . . . the comfort of laying out the public money for something honorable, the satisfaction of seeing an object and proof of national good taste, and the regret and mortification of erecting a monument of our barbarism which will be loaded with execrations as long as it shall endure. . . . You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile them to the rest of the world, and procure them its praise."

 
Jefferson loved the fine arts. While in France he was known as a world connoisseur of the arts. There are countless clues as to the two sides of Jefferson.

 
Jefferson espoused equality and wrote to free the slaves, yet owned six hundred.

Jefferson believed the New Nation might imitate the mobility and immediate honesty of a Native American Tribe, but was the first politician to suggest removal of Natives from their lands.

Jefferson, a student of the Bible, a church going man, religiously fought for Separation of Church and State.

 
The façade of his mansion, Monticello, stood in white contrast to the man in his later, freer years, a Jefferson who answered the door in loose robes and house slippers, the formal façade of statesman, the informal and sincere host.

 
Jefferson then, was and may be seen as a dichotomy, a man set in his architectural preferences as he was radical in his vision of an agrarian America, void of dense populations and cities.

Remarked Jefferson, "When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the means of producing some good. The yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our nation, and I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice."

Jefferson was as quick to critique the work of other architects as he was to ignore the established rhetoric of his own. "The private buildings are very rarely constructed of stone or brick, much the greater portion being of scantling and boards, plaster with lime. It is impossible to devise things more ugly, uncomfortable and happily more perishable. "The only public buildings worthy of mention are the Capitol, the Palace, the College, and the Hospital for Lunatics. "The College and Hospital are rude, misshapen piles, which, but that they have roofs, would be taken for brick kilns. There are no other public buildings but churches and courthouses in which no attempts are made at elegance. Indeed it would not be easy to execute such an attempt, as a workman could scarcely be found here capable of drawings and order. The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions of this land. Buildings are often erected, built by individuals at considerable expense. To give these symmetry and taste would not increase their cost. It would only change the arrangement of the materials, the form and combination of the members. This would often cost less than the burthen of barbarous ornaments with which these buildings are sometimes charged. But the first principles of the art are unknown, and there exists scarcely a model among us sufficiently chaste to give an idea of them."

 
And of course, the Architect Jefferson had his critics. 
 
"I am cramped in this design by Jefferson's prejudices in favor of the architecture of the old French books, out of which he fishes everything," the architect  Latrobe wrote to his associate, Lenthall. Latrobe lamented further, "Jefferson is an "excellent architect out of books but loves the taste of Queen Elizabeth best. "With Mr. Jefferson I conversed at length on the subject of architecture. "Palladio he said 'was the Bible'--you should get it and stick close to it."
 
Palladio, the Roman architect, was a man caged by his times, the expansion of the Roman Empire, as was Jefferson, caught up in the time of revolution and independence. 
 
In my opinion, Jefferson, the Architect was survived by Thomas, the man. At once he was leader and follower, statesman and the accommodating host, the visionary and the blind man. 
 
Jefferson's architecture was as Jefferson's life, compartmentalized, structured, expected, sound and symmetrical.
 

 

And yet, Thomas loved the land. He took joy in farming and gardening, in setting his homes within the total asymmetrical chaos of Nature.

 
He loved, he hated, he made love, bore children, cried, lamented, questioned and ultimately, like all of us, found perfect balance in the return of his bones to the soil.

I wonder.

Had Jefferson been born today would Palladio be his guide or would Thomas glide along, searching for his own style? Isn't that where we find ourselves today?

 

Stonethrower knew Jefferson and was his dearest friend. We'll meet Thomas again, one day, sometime in our Search for Living Architecture.

Next week, we're going back in time, way back, before the Egyptians, before Hiram the architect of King Solomon's temple. We may find the beginning but maybe not.
 
Enjoy!