Rediscovering the Founding Fathers of American Architecture
by Hugh Howard
Bloomsbury, 2006
Comments: Today we know that, among his many other talents, Thomas Jefferson was also a skilled architect. But the full extent of his accomplishments in that field were not fully realized until over a century after his death. Up until that time his legacy was based almost entirely upon his political career and little was remembered of his architecture. The reawakening of that knowledge came about largely as the consequence of a young scholar named Fiske Kimball who in 1914 began studying Jefferson's personal papers, letters, drawings and other historical material specifically looking for clues to his architectural work. Kimball was subsequently able to piece together a richly detailed account of the considerable extent to which Jefferson had been involved in numerous architectural projects and thus bring renewed attention to this missing part of Jefferson's heritage.
This book tells the story of Kimball's life and work spent researching and curating America's early architectural history, including Jefferson and other notable early American architects, during the first great period of public building when the country was young. It reads like something of a mystery, as we follow Kimball through a series of research discoveries that when given context, each incrementally expand the story. Although somewhat obscure, there's no question that Kimball was an important character who made a significant contribution to our understanding of America's architectural history. For anyone interested in that history, this book is a very enjoyable story.
Copy Notes: Hardback, first edition, photographs, illustrations, appendix
