MAY 2007 » book review

Out of the Shadows

In Jefferson's Shadow: The Architecture of Thomas R. Blackburn
by Bryan Clark Green
Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY; 2006
271 pp.; hardcover; 120 color and 60 b&w images; $50
ISBN 978-1-56898-479-7

Reviewed by Richard Sammons

As a student at the University of Virginia, I was assigned to an elderly Professor Emeritus to be his assistant, organizer, editor, ghost writer and driver. The only thing for which I was actually qualified was the chauffeur spot, and Frederick Doveton Nichols, the professor in question, would not be driven. However, Freddy (aka the Fred Astaire of Architecture), provided me with an architectural education that was far different from my fellow Wahoos. Scouring the drawings, writings and scribbles of Thomas Jefferson, we looked for clues to make attribution and validate claims of house-proud Virginians that Jefferson had a hand in our pile of bricks. Together (me as passenger) we drove the back roads of Virginia knocking on doors of interesting houses and showing up for appointments to known houses, generally on the wrong day or even month. One of these houses was Edgehill, a house in the shadow of Monticello built for Jefferson's son-in-law Thomas Randolph.

The brick house that exists today, now mixed in with the uncontrolled sprawl that is ruining Virginia, was an enigma. Jefferson produced plans for a one-story wooden villa, but the two-story brick house that replaced Jefferson's clearly had his mark (an archway in the hall is exactly like one in the dining room at Monticello), even though it was built after his death. Most assumed it was by a few of Jefferson's chief builders – Dinsmore and Neilson, which we know much about thanks to the work of professor Edward Lay and others. And now, thanks to the discovery in 1999 of three sketchbooks in an upstate New York antique shop, we now know of Thomas R. Blackburn.

Among the drawings in Blackburn's sketchbooks are Jefferson's own drawing of the first Edgehill and that of its replacement by Blackburn. Though Blackburn was known peripherally, we had no clue that he had advanced to the position of architect clearly trained, at least by osmosis, by Jefferson himself. Blackburn's Edgehill II represents a type of double-pile Tuscan brick box that is ubiquitous from western Virginia to Kentucky and southern Ohio. As a result of these sketchbooks, attributions of Jeffersonian work will no longer be limited to Dinsmore and Neilson, and Blackburn's body of work may yet increase.

The bulk of In Jefferson's Shadow is a facsimile of Blackburn's sketchbooks. The drawings document the breadth and detail of an early-19th-century architect, offering a glimpse into the practices of the period. Many of the earlier drawings seem didactic in purpose, being copies of the plates from Palladio, Chamber or even Asher Benjamin. The early houses such as Edge-hill are of either the Jeffersonian/Palladian six-room block plan or simple center-hall double-pile plans of the Georgian style. As with Jefferson, much of Blackburn's work shows little interest in the then-prevalent Adam style or the Greek Revival. Jefferson's own work could be considered 100 years out of date by the time of the building of the University of Virginia, and the scores of workmen who were trained in that endeavour kept the Roman and Palladian forms favored by its designer in circulation until the Civil War. After the completion of the university, Blackburn stayed on in Charlottesville and designed a few houses in what must have been a fairly competitive business environment, considering the number of former university workmen trying to do the same.

After a move from Charlottesville to Staunton, VA, across Rockfish Gap, his projects increased in number and complexity. The Western Lunatic Asylum and the Virginia Institution for the Deaf & Dumb are among his larger projects. He also designed courthouses and perhaps the first resort hotel in America, the Fauquier in White Sulphur Springs, now known as the Greenbrier. There are also several unidentified houses, some furniture and details and some rather quaint landscape designs.

Many of the drawings, nicely rendered, are clearly for presentation. That Blackburn retained these drawings is remarkable, as before graphic reproduction was available original drawings had to be sent to clients and job sites. All the more reason these sketchbooks are so important.

The text, by Bryan Clark Green, is limited to description and interpretation of the documents, as biographical information. It is scant at best, though some understanding of Blackburn's training can be interpolated by the most well-recorded construction project of the day other than the U.S. Capitol – the University of Virginia. The resulting Catalogue Raisonne is well written and researched and is a must-have addition to any architect's library, not only those interested in Jefferson. We thank Green and the Princeton Architectural Press for producing this volume rather than allowing this work to be buried in archival purgatory.

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