SPRING 2016
The Blueprint
Elizabeth Chew puts Madison’s Temple in context
On the Montpelier property today, the only structures remaining from
the Madison era are the house itself and the Temple. Originally, the
Temple—completed in 1811—was part of a comprehensive design for
the precinct around the house that included lawns, groves and allées
of trees, a pond, roads and walking paths. Today, before the complete
restoration of the landscape, we see the house and Temple minus their
full physical context.
A small classical temple in a landscape setting—adjacent to a large
dwelling with a prominent pedimented portico—would have had a
number of associations for Madison and his peers in the early years
of the American republic. As the Founding Fathers began to ponder
what their new country would look like, neoclassical architecture held
particular power to evoke ideals from Roman history in particular
that were fundamental to the American experiment—republican
government, civic virtue and the responsibilities of citizenship. The
founders, notably Madison’s close friend Thomas Jefferson, turned
to ancient Rome and its empire for architectural models for both
public and domestic buildings, including the Virginia State Capitol
in Richmond, Monticello, the White House and the U.S. Capitol
building. These were based on precedents from the ancient world,
whether literal quotations from specific buildings or simply the correct
and proportional use of the classical language of architecture as it was
known from Vitruvius’ Ten Books of Architecture or via 16th century
Italian architect Andrea Palladio’s Quattro Libri.
Additionally, in the context of English garden design as it evolved
throughout the 18th century, estates of elite landowners almost always
included large gardens with lakes, rolling lawns with groves of trees
and picturesque architectural features such as small classical temples,
fictitious “ruins,” grottoes and bridges, designed to suggest pastoral
arcadias. Temples similar to and predating Montpelier’s by nearly
a century appear in famous and influential English gardens such as
Stowe in Buckinghamshire (Rotunda designed by Sir John Vanbrugh,
1721) and Kew Gardens (Temple of Aeolus designed by Sir William
Chambers, 1760s).
For Madison at Montpelier, the Temple functioned, as it would have
in the European garden tradition, as one picturesque aspect of
a larger landscape design, along with its purely utilitarian role as an ice
house. But the temple form itself, in the context of James Madison’s
nation-building achievements, would also certainly have signified civic
aspirations that the American founders located in the ancient world.
—Elizabeth Chew, Vice President for Museum Programs
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