Rendering of the north elevation of Alderman Library, ca. 1930s Printed rendering, 12 ¾ x 20 ¼ in. (MSS 9097)

By 1932, Stanford White’s reading room could hold merely half of the University Library’s 195,000 volumes and offer only 100 seats to its 2,600 undergraduates. Setting a precedent for U.Va. libraries to come, Taylor’s design for Alderman Library took advantage of the steep hill to the west of the Academical Village. Building into the hill allowed for the library’s façade to appear in scale with the surrounding two-story buildings, while leaving room for five stories of book stacks on the north elevation. Funded in part by a Public Works Administration (PWA) grant, the building was named after the recently deceased university president.

Photograph of the Alderman Library construction site showing the University Chapel and the Anatomical Theater (demolished in 1939), 1937 John Kevan Peebles, photographer and supervising architect John Kevan Peebles Papers (MSS 8422-a)

In addition to partially realizing the quadrangle suggested in Campbell’s late 1920s drawing, Alderman Library made the obsolete and dilapidated Anatomical Theater even more of an eyesore. It was demolished in 1939, the only Jefferson building on grounds to be intentionally destroyed. With the removal of the library from the Rotunda--the core of Jefferson’s vision for the University--the Academical Village lost one of its primary functions and transitioned from an active hub to a symbolic icon of the University.