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
The Rotunda
1819 draft of the Rotunda
The Great Rotunda Fire in 1895
Renovation underway on the Rotunda in 2011, with the Thomas Jefferson statue in the foreground
The history of the University of Virginia opens with its conception by Thomas Jefferson at the beginning of the early 19th century. The university was chartered in 1819, and classes commenced in 1825.
1856 lithograph of the Academical Village (Rotunda, Pavilions, and the Lawn)
Father of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson was the first and only president of the United States to found an institution of higher learning.
The non-denominational chapel near the Rotunda of the university was established in 1890, beyond the original scope of Jefferson's plans.
Inside the UVA Chapel