ABSTRACT
This research investigates the architectural drawings and construction photographs associated with the Public Works Administration’s (PWA) built projects at the University of Virginia (UVa). Like other ventures the PWA funded nationally, these documents played pivotal roles in the administrative and financial functioning of the projects: working drawings provided employment to architects at the beginning of projects while photographs evidenced progress throughout a project’s later stages. Both drawings and photographs were partly necessary for releasing payment by the PWA. This paper focuses primarily on the University’s PWA projects: Bayly Art, Thornton Hall, Alderman Library, the Private Patients’ Pavilion, and renovations to the University’s Rotunda. However, the consistency of architects employed by the University from 1900 through the PWA period of the 1930s allows the research to suggest ways in which the PWA may have changed the nature of architectural drawing standards and construction documentation.
