This amazing book originally published privately by Dr. William Thornton (chief architect for the Washington Capitol) is now available in a Lulu Modern First Trade Paperback edition. Fascinating look at how Thomas Jefferson worked with an architect that was of the same mindset as his (which was genius level).

Thomas Jefferson's influence is evident throughout the nation he helped found - from the democratic ideals he set down in the Declaration of Independence to the expansion of America's borders through the Louisiana Purchase. But the more tangible examples of his creative genius lie in his architecture - from the halls of the University of Virginia to his home on his "little mountain," Monticello. Here, in this essay by award-winning historian Marshall B. Davidson, is the story of Jefferson the architect.

While the majority of scholarship on early Washington focuses on its political and physical development, in Incidental Architect Gordon S. Brown describes the intellectual and social scene of the late 1700s through the lives of a prominent couple whose cultural aspirations served as both model and mirror for the city’s own. When William and Anna Maria Thornton arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1794, the new nation’s capital was little more than a raw village. The Edinburgh–educated Thornton and his accomplished wife brought with them the values of the Scottish Enlightenment, an enthusiasm for the arts, and a polished urbanity that was lacking in the little city emerging from the swamps along the Potomac. Thornton’s talents were manifold: He is perhaps best known as the original architect of the Capitol building, but he also served as a city commissioner and as director of the Patent Office, where his own experimentation in steam navigation embroiled him in a long-running dispute with inventor Robert Fulton. In spite of their general preoccupation with politics and real estate development, Washington’s citizens gradually created a network of cultural institutions—theaters, libraries and booksellers, music venues, churches, schools, and even colleges and intellectual associations—that began to satisfy their aspirations. Incidental Architect is a fascinating account of how the city’s cultural and social institutions were shaped by its earliest citizens.

Pioneering work on TJ as an architect; occasionally useful but needs to be used with more recent scholarship. -- Frank Shuffelton.

This is a collection of the architectural drawings of American President, Thomas Jefferson. The sketches demonstrate how the imaginative and mathematical mind of Jefferson took shape.