Home of Thomas Jefferson
1769 1784
Jefferson’s bedroom © Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello / Robert Lautman
North Octagonal Room, Madison’s Room © Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello
Dining room © Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello / Philip Beaurline
Cabinet © Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello / Robert Lautman
In 1815 Thomas Jefferson sold his library, the largest one in the United States, to the Congress. In 1851, two-thirds of his books were lost in the fire. Today you can find other copies of those publications at the library of Monticello.
The armchair, 1800–1810. It belonged to Thomas Jefferson, but no one knows where exactly it was placed in the room and how it was used by its owner. Rumor has it that Jefferson sat in it while performing his duties as vice president.
A card index can be found in one of the drawers of the octahedral table.
© Wikipedia
Thomas Jefferson, an American aristocrat, diplomat and president, was the architect of a single building on which he worked throughout his life. The house was his Virginia mansion, the famed Monticello. While the look of the plantation villa was traditional, its technological side was revolutionary. The many engineering novelties included a flush toilet, dumb-waiter, a letter-copying device (a muscle-powered Xerox machine) and much else. This was, in short, the prototypical home of a mad scientist. One can imagine Jefferson torturing James Bond in one of the mansion’s great cellar spaces. Architects’ own homes, especially in the 20th century, have been laboratories of invention. Jefferson’s home is the first in this line.
931 Thomas Jefferson Parkway, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Book room © Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello / Robert Lautman
Home of John Soane
1792 1824
Breakfast Room © Derry Moore / Sir John Soane’s Museum
South Drawing Room © Derry Moore / Sir John Soane’s Museum
Soane's Bath Room © Gareth Gardner / Sir John Soane’s Museum
The Model Room © Gareth Gardner / Sir John Soane’s Museum
12-14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, England
© Wikipedia
John Soane is the most unclassical of all the architects of Classicism, and his home itself is the strangest of all his creations. He gradually expanded the house as he bought up neighboring properties and reworked them. The result is a crowded and bewildering labyrinth of rooms of varying dimensions and shapes, oddly placed doors, shafts between floors and natural light streaming from unseen openings in every direction, including from below. Like every enlightened English gentleman of his time, Soane was a collector of antiques and paintings, and it was to house and display them that he kept adding new structures to the house. The displays so cover the walls of the tiny rooms that you can hardly pass through without bumping an ear or a nose into a Roman marble.
Dome Area © Derry Moore / Sir John Soane’s Museum
