UVa seeks crumbling columns fix

Parts of the University of Virginia’s Rotunda are literally falling to pieces.
Roughly a third of the Rotunda’s decorative Corinthian column capitals are showing signs of severe deterioration, UVa officials reported to the Board of Visitors on Friday.
“They have begun to deteriorate to such a degree that we’re concerned about parts falling unimpeded to the portico below,” said David J. Neuman, the university’s architect.

UVa installed black netting atop each column early in the spring to prevent any crumbling pieces from falling. The university had planned to remove the nets prior to the May 23 graduation ceremony on the Lawn, but now it appears the nets may remain for some time.
The university has hired conservation and engineering consultants to conduct an analysis of the problem and make recommendations for fixes. The consultants are expected to deliver their report in the fall.

The column capitals were added to the Thomas Jefferson-designed Rotunda as part of a reconstruction effort following a devastating fire in 1895. The Rotunda and the rest of Jefferson’s Academical Village at UVa is a World Heritage Site, along with Jefferson’s home, Monticel-lo.
The capitals’ decorative carvings seem to have been damaged by an acidic mixture brought on by rain and decades of coal dust that settled in the cracks and grooves. The coal dust, Neuman said, likely came from chimneys of nearby buildings, such as the Pavilions.
Despite the column capitals’ damage, Neuman said, there are not any imminent structural concerns for the Rotunda.

Why the funereal-looking black nets? Neuman said the university’s only options were black or bright highway orange.
“The choices were orange or black,” he said. “There was no white or blue.”
Neuman showed members of the Board of Visitors a couple chunks from the column capitals to demonstrate the damage.
“Here’s a piece of one that’s falling apart in my hand as I show it to you,” Neuman said.
In other business, Neuman gave members of the Board of Visitors a first look at UVa’s designs to expand Newcomb Hall, the university’s student center and a primary gateway for many visitors.

As part of the expansion, which is scheduled to get under way next spring, the university would replace and dramatically alter the appearance of the building’s façade facing UVa’s bookstore.
The university’s designs, however, met with a tepid response.
“I just don’t think it says ‘University of Virginia,’” BOV member Robert D. Hardie said. “It says ‘institutional.’”
Hardie said the designs lack UVa character and described them as “heavy” and “disconnected.” “It seems like a building that doesn’t belong in that area,” he said.

Board member Helen Dragas agreed.
“It looks kind of vanilla and institutional looking for being so close to the heart of the Academical Village,” she said. “It looks like an office building.”
Randal J. Kirk, another BOV member, said it “looks like the façade of the ballpark in San Francisco.”
The critics suggested that the Newcomb expansion designs ought to be more reminiscent of the Jeffersonian architecture found nearby.
Board member Austin Ligon, however, said he liked the design.
“If Mr. Jefferson were here, the last thing he would want to do is repeat what he did 250 years ago,” Ligon said.

Buildings and Grounds Committee Chairman L.F. Payne assured his colleagues that the Newcomb expansion designs were merely a “first draft.” The BOV is scheduled to consider the designs at its September meeting.
Newcomb Hall was built in 1955 and underwent four additions over the decades, morphing it into a much-maligned architectural hodgepodge. The expansion project, he said, is intended to be in “sympathy” with the original structure and other UVa buildings from that era, most of which can be considered “calm and sedate and weren’t exhibitionist.”