Abstract:In the late-eighteenth century, Thomas Jefferson promoted classical architecture in America through his own practices. His University of Virginia campus and his own home in Monticello became known as “Jeffersonian architecture” or as the American form of “neo-Classicism” and/or “neo-Palladianism”. From the late-nineteenth to the early-twentieth century, during the Gilded Age, American art and architecture underwent a renaissance, and as the national self-confidence was restored, many public buildings adopted a new Greek, Roman, or Renaissance style. At the same time, the educational program of the école des Beaux-Arts in Paris influenced the first generations of American architects, such as McKim, Mead and White, whose Beaux-art trainings catered to the taste of the upper class. As the result, many “country” houses were built in a classical style that represented the legacy of Palladio and Jefferson, and more importantly, the American adaptation of it.
