Photograph of the University gymnastics team in front of Fayerweather Gymnasium, 1913 Rufus W. Holsinger, photographer The Holsinger Studio Collection (MSS 9862)

Built on Carr’s Hill overlooking the Rotunda, Fayerweather Hall was the University’s first substantial gymnasium and the first building since the Annex to refer to the classicism of the Academical Village. The architect, alumnus John Kevan Peebles, claimed that the recently completed Brooks Hall and University Chapel “violate Mr. Jefferson’s scheme most flagrantly.” His design for Fayerweather Hall instead “follows the lines laid down by Jefferson, being classic in feeling and detail.” Fayerweather Hall quickly became outdated as a gymnasium and was converted into classroom space in 1924 for the newly established McIntire School of Fine Arts.

Illustration of the proposed Memorial Arch to the Confederacy from Corks and Curls, 1895 Carpenter and Peebles, architects; illustration by T. McK. Sharpe (LD5687 .C7)

While working on Fayerweather Hall, Peebles also designed a triumphal arch for the end of the Lawn commemorating the University’s Confederate dead. Peebles’s designs for both the arch and Fayerweather Hall reflected the fervor over Neoclassicism around the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition.

Although Peebles was one of the first to recognize Jefferson as the architect of the University of Virginia and wrote emotionally of his respect for the master, these two designs compete with the Academical Village. While Fayerweather Hall was built into the side of Carr’s Hill and raised on a massive, rusticated base, the arch at the south end of the Lawn unabashedly completes Jefferson’s composition. Unlike the stylistic eclecticism that dominated the 19th century, Peebles’s classical designs reflect his interest in a unified architectural vision for the University. In the decades after the construction of Fayerweather Hall, new buildings responded even more directly to the character of Jefferson’s historic core.