london bridge is falling down..

Well, more like UVA Grounds is falling, and no, we're not really collapsing on ourselves. There's just construction going on everywhere and it's always a guessing game to decide where to take my tour. Several additions that I'm really excited about are the new drama buildings. They're getting a huge building for classrooms and workshops, and they just had a parking lot finished. I imagine that'll draw even larger audiences for drama productions.

I'm kind of wondering how the new Curry building will be like, hopefully with some underground parking? We can't afford to lose anymore parking space...

One development that I don't like so much is the South Lawn project. I understand the need for more classroom space and more academic buildings, but to extend our Lawn? Meh. We're not even knocking down the buildings that will divide the two Lawns. (Interesting tidbit: I've heard that it would be much too expensive to knock down Cabell Hall as it was built at the end of WWII -- it can withstand an atomic bomb. O_O) We had to raze our JPA parking lot to build the Lawn, and make it pretty inconvenient for Brandon Avenue residents to get to class. Meh, I'm not a huge fan. But it looks like it'll be really pretty, cheers for paying homage to Jefferson's preferred architectural style!

If you ever come for a campus visit, you'll notice that all the buildings look pretty much the same with colonades, white paint and red brick. We're really proud of our history and traditions here, and strive to respect most of Jefferson's wishes. This was his favorite architectural style -- his home at Monticello was built in the same way. I rather like the uniform look of the buildings as a result of that -- you don't have some musty 50 year old buildings in some random dump on Grounds. Rather, the buildings provide an aesthetically pleasing front.