ABSTRACT
Thomas Jefferson's role in the architecture of the classical tradition is important enough to deserve the term Jeffersonianism. The roots it sank were not as deep as those of the civic order that still guides our political life. The architects and builders in the next few generations in America became entrapped by a culture that had quite different ambitions from those that animated the Founders. The nation's centennial celebration reminded Americans of the unique place the nation occupied in the world, and in the next decade the forms that appealed to the Founders gained a new birth of freedom. In the decades after the First World War that episode was undermined by a doctrine that rejected the reasons that validated the traditional forms that had been brought back into play. An inquiry into the inadequacies of the revival will help us understand why it was rejected, after which we can turn to suggestions about how to restore Jeffersonianism to American architecture.
