The new $43 million Thomas Jefferson Visitors Center and Smith Education Center at Thomas Jefferson’s historic Monticello estate officially opened earlier this week.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, in conjunction with the Baltimore architectural firm Ayers/Saint/Gross, designed and built the new center. The visitors center includes educational features like classrooms, galleries, a discovery room and an orientation theater, along with a café, ticket pavilion and gift shop.
The Foundation’s ultimate goal was to build a center “that would allow us to offer visitors more ways of getting acquainted with understanding Jefferson and his importance,” said spokesperson Wayne Mogelnicki.
The project, five and a half years in the making, represents a modern but reverent perspective about Monticello, which has been named a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage site.
To keep from detracting from Monticello’s unique architecture, the Foundation designed the center using a different architectural style than that of Jefferson’s home, said Sandra Vicchio a principal at Ayers/Saint/Gross who managed the project’s day-to-day activities.
She added that the project drew inspiration from “vernacular” agrarian architecture.
“It seemed inappropriate to just imitate the architecture of a house ... 200 years later,” she said.
The new buildings feature a pinwheel-shaped pavilion, a green roof for the gift shop, fieldstone from the region and red cedar.
Vicchio said the architects worked closely with the foundation to create an addition that would complement rather than compete with Monticello and would serve as “a front door to Monticello and not the attraction itself.”
Mogelnicki said the different architectural style helps meet the estate’s needs.
“Its something totally new,” he said. “We had a variety of cramped ... facilities spread out at a variety of locations and now they’re all consolidated and vastly enhanced.”
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