Members of the University of Virginia architecture faculty have called for the University to stop building classical architecture that is consistent with Jefferson's original design and instead to build avant-gardist architecture. Their position follows from their academic curriculum, which teaches only avant-gardist architecture.

The University's architecture department recently gave the Thomas Jefferson Medal to the architects of Hereford College, a sterile, modernist compound on the edge of campus. Now, some members of the architecture faculty have published a manifesto in the school newspaper demanding that the University disfigure its entire campus - including its very heart - with that same avant-gardist architecture.

Jefferson's "Academical Village" is one of America's most prominent historic landmarks. It is completely inappropriate to build avant-gardist architecture here that detracts from the character of this landmark.

We, the undersigned, believe that traditional Jeffersonian architecture has an important place on the University of Virginia campus, and we ask that the Board of Visitors continue their policy of building in Jefferson's classical style, at a high level of quality.

Furthermore, we the undersigned believe that the narrow-minded academic agenda of the School of Architecture has no place at a distinguished institution of higher learning, and we call on the University to add traditional architecture to the curriculum. The University of Virginia McIntire School of Music teaches classical music as well as atonal music and jazz. The University of Virginia School of Architecture should have a similar breadth of vision: it should teach diverse styles of architecture, rather than focusing dogmatically on the avant-gardist style.

"For more information and pictures, see http://massengale.typepad.com/venustas/2005/09/dog_bites_man_a.html