A city gem demolished for what?

Daniel Bluestone Charlottesville
Published: April 10, 2008

A Daily Progress story on March 26 headlined “New UVa grad center to serve as Jefferson Scholars’ base” clarifies important issues.
The graduate center design, with its four connected buildings facing a courtyard, could have easily incorporated Eugene Bradbury’s historic Compton House.
VMDO architect Robert Moje anticipates the center’s “Medici Effect” of cross-disciplinary vitality. When confronting the challenge of combining architectural heritage with new design, by recycling the Compton House, rather than seeking cross-disciplinary collaboration Moje and the Jefferson Scholars Foundation reached out for the backhoe. They demolished one of Charlottesville’s finest 20th-century houses.
In the place of the Compton house, which had space that could have been renovated for an estimated $200 a square foot, the foundation opted for new space costing in excess of $500 a square foot.
The foundation is squandering millions of dollars on a dubious effort at community, money that was raised for fellowships for University of Virginia students.
Eschewing architectural excellence, the center provides a banal combination of elements familiar in VMDO’s John Paul Jones Arena and Manassas Park Middle School. Foundation President Jimmy Wright’s references to this as a “facility” are revealing.
VMDO prides itself on being environmental and green, and using tilted roofs to catch rainwater to flush building toilets. Will there be enough flushes in the lifetime of this mediocre building to make up for resources wasted in, and the environmental irresponsibility represented by, the Compton House demolition?
Despite their delusions and arrogance, the foundation is no Medici and VMDO is no Michelangelo.
Even if you accept them at their word that visiting scholars and guests will spend $2.7 million annually in Charlottesville (that is $7,397 each and every day), it is hard not to feel that both UVa and Charlottesville are impoverished by this plan.