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The Rotunda at the University of Virginia was designed by Thomas Jefferson as the architectural and academic heart of the University’s community of scholars. He named the University’s original buildings the “Academical Village.”
The Rotunda is a building located on The Lawn on the original grounds of the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson designed it to represent the "authority of nature and power of reason" and modeled it after the Pantheon in Rome. Construction began in 1822 and was completed shortly after Jefferson's death in 1826.
The University of Virginia’s Rotunda has seemingly been a work-in-progress from the beginning. Designed by the University’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, the Rotunda is the centerpiece of the Academical Village.
In many ways, the Rotunda is the cardinal architectural achievement on what Jefferson thought was one of his most profound accomplishments, the founding of the University of Virginia.
The life-size statue of Thomas Jefferson was a gift to the University from the State Legislature in 1861. This statue serves as the mailbox for the Seven Society, the most secretive of the University of Virginia secret societies. The Rotunda Capitals, carved from Carrara marble, weigh more than 3 tons each.
Jefferson’s Rotunda was designed as the University of Virginia’s library. The building is a modified, half-scale interpretation of the Pantheon in Rome influenced by Palladian design.
Take a historical tour of the University of Virginia rotunda, and academical village! The University Guide Service offers free student-run tours daily.
