Listen to part of a lecture in a history of architecture class.

Listen to part of a lecture in a history of architecture class. P: Today we\'ll be discussing one of the readings I assigned you. Style of architecture in the United States that it calls late colonial, a style that was first popular there from around the 1700s to the early 1800s. Now this is a somewhat inexact term. Your textbook goes into more precise terms in detail, and we\'ll get into all that later. But let\'s just stick with late colonial for now, since what I really want to focus on is the work of one architect who had a tremendous impact on Europe and North America for several centuries, an Italian architect named Palladio. Palladio lived during the Italian Renaissance, an era marked by a renewed interest in ancient Rome. In the 1500s, Palladio conducted an extensive study of Roman ruins. Based on his research, he published four architecture books that became the definitive text for reconstructing, for copying classical buildings. As we\'ve said before, by classical in this context, we\'re referring to ancient Greece and Rome. So these four books of Palladio provided detailed instructions, a kind of how-to manual, for how to construct a building in the style of ancient Rome. That\'s why he\'s credited with an interest in and bringing back the style of classical architecture. In the first of his four books, Palladio illustrated and described how to construct various types of ancient Roman columns. The drawings were clear, the instructions were precise. And for architects of the late colonial style, book one became the textbook on the styles of columns. In the other books...Yes, Julie? S: Didn\'t anyone else write any books about classical architecture in all that time, you know, between Palladio in the 1500s and the architects of the 1700s? P: There were other books with instructions for classical style buildings. They were called architectural pattern books. They described the layout of buildings, and they were somewhat useful to architects in North America, but none of these could rival Palladio\'s works in terms of authority, completeness or precision in detail, and many of these authors got their information from Palladio as their primary source. Okay, in his other books, Palladio included designs for private country homes, which he based on the column types described in book one. In these later books, he also discussed the reconstruction of Roman temples. In fact, the design of Roman temples heavily influenced United States architecture, so this was an indispensable source to architects. Let\'s take a look at a building that your homework reading described as characteristic of this late colonial style, a building that was clearly inspired by Palladio\'s work. This is the rotunda, a building on the campus of the University of Virginia in the southern United States. It consists of the round building and in the front, the columns that support a roof, what\'s called the portico. The rotunda was designed by Thomas Jefferson, who, in addition to being the third President of the United States, was also an influential proponent of Classical Revival architecture. There weren\'t too many good examples of the style in Virginia then and Jefferson made it the centerpiece of his design of the canvas because he wanted university students to be familiar with it. The picture shows that the columns are based on Palladio\'s description. Now, why did architects in the United States want to replicate these classical designs? Well, in part, because political leaders like Jefferson saw connection between classical architecture and classical labels. They associated Ancient Rome and Greece with democracy, something they were committed to in their own new nation. And influential citizens also wanted their public buildings, like universities and government offices, built in the classical style to represent these ideals. Now, remember I said the style was used for private homes too. Why do you think people wanted that and who could afford such grandiose buildings? S: Wealthy business people, I guess, or politicians, maybe, and their families. They probably thought it would make them look important. P: Right. Influential people. Someone like James Madison, who would become the fourth president of the United States, adopted this stuff for his father\'s home Montpelier. Montpelier, has many of the features we\'ve discussed, like the columns and the portico is very prominent. Madison added it in the 1790s to show that he was a notable politician. Montpelier is just one of many homes built in a classical style to signify status during this time. Now, classical styles of architecture continue to be popular into the 1900s and we can see it in many homes today. But if you look closely at many of these homes and compare them to homes made centuries ago, well it seems like newer architects rush through the job. The proportions of the columns are frequently off and they look like simplified versions of the original conception.