An article in today’s C-Ville Weekly by UVA Architecture Professor Kenneth Schwartz got my attention. The opinion piece is entitled “Architectural Integrity at UVA” and starts as follows: “The University of Virginia has pursued a timid, insecure and flawed approach to the design of its new buildings.” Professor Schwartz argues that the firing of a number of architects and landscape designers who step outside the frame of “Jeffersonian replication” is cause for alarm.
At the end of the article there was a link to another website called the UVA Architecture Forum.
That group introduces themselves as follows: “On September 7, 2005 a group of twenty-four faculty members from the University of Virginia, School of Architecture sent an open letter to the University Board of Visitors, the University Administration and the University Community that raised questions about the future of Jeffersonian architectural ideals on the University Grounds.”
While they do not have a blog, you can review and submit items for discussion here:
http://www.uva-architecture-forum.org/discussion/index.html
Certainly UVA has a lot of projects in the pipeline that will impact our community. These include new buildings around the hospital and a new performing arts complex at Emmett St. & Ivy Rd. What do you think of UVA’s architectural direction? Brian Wheeler
