10 years later: Rotunda renovation remembered

When Teresa Sullivan first stepped onto the University of Virginia’s Grounds in 2010 as a candidate for president, she thought someone important had died. 

The Rotunda’s capitals – the ornate tops of the building’s columns – were shrouded in black fabric. “For whom is the University mourning?” she asked her escorts. “I just assumed this was some kind of funereal decoration.”

No one had died, but the Rotunda itself was ailing. Chunks of the deteriorating capitals were breaking off and tumbling to the terrace. The fabric kept the pieces from pelting visitors. Inside, there were a raft of other problems, including persistent leaks.

Leonard Sandridge, the now-retired executive vice president and chief operating officer, collected the marble pieces and put them in a baggie, which he gave to Sullivan. She began bringing that baggie to meet with local lawmakers, state legislators and alumni groups, imploring them to help save one of the most architecturally important buildings in the United States, designed by the University’s founder, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson. 

Her show-and-tell packet of marble pieces became so ubiquitous that state lawmakers started calling her “the baggie lady,” she recalled. 

It worked. Sullivan spearheaded a campaign to raise, through both government funding and private philanthropy, the $58.5 million needed to renovate and reimagine the iconic Jeffersonian centerpiece.

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Rotunda’s rebirth. The overhaul fixed broken clocks, sealed the leaks, installed modern climate control, placed more durable Italian marble capitals and transformed the building into a place where students attend classes, defend dissertations and tuck into quiet study spots.

While today’s students feel at home in the historic structure, that wasn’t always the case.

With the renovation looming, an intern in Sullivan’s office set out to survey students on how they interact with the Rotunda. “The results were shocking,” Sullivan said. “A big fraction of the students said they had never been in the Rotunda. Some thought they were forbidden to enter it.”

Jefferson designed the Rotunda as a library and gathering space, but died before the building was completed. Its early incarnation featured an exercise yard and classroom space, including an 1800s chemistry lab that, at some point, was bricked over in an earlier renovation. Workers rediscovered the “chemical hearth” in 2015. 

While the University long ago moved the Rotunda’s library to a larger space, for Sullivan, returning classrooms to the domed building was a priority.

“This is what Mr. Jefferson wanted it to be,” Sullivan said. “I think he always anticipated there would be students, and we know there were classes because of the chemistry hearth. It was just good to be able to bring that back.”

Sarita Herman was hired to join the team that oversaw the project for UVA’s Facilities Management, working with preservation planner Brian Hogg of the UVA Office of the Architect. It was her first job in construction, an experience both thrilling and nerve-racking. 

Though the building was at times encased in an exoskeleton of scaffolding, most of the work was unseen, she said.

The Rotunda was built directly atop clay soil, without anything that would pass as a modern foundation. Workers had to underpin, or support, the brick building with concrete to excavate for a 6,000-square-foot underground addition to house large new mechanical systems and a catering kitchen. Digging beneath a historic brick building largely constructed by hand “was really very intimidating,” Herman said.

But maybe not as much as when they had to carefully lift and install the new capitals using a custom track system. Each of 16 new capitals was carved from a 9,000-pound block of Carrara marble.

“We had to swap out the capitals without destabilizing the building, and that one definitely kept me up some nights,” she said. “But honestly, it went really smoothly. It was very well engineered.” 

The renovation lasted four years and was completed in the fall of 2016.

“I was really just elated,” Sullivan said. “We had a big outdoor meal for all the people who had worked on it, kind of like a picnic, just to thank them. And I told them this was beyond my dreams for what this building could look like. I knew how hard they had worked and all the problems they had to overcome. But they did a terrific job. The result was really spectacular.”

The University’s current president, Scott Beardsley, agrees.

“I have been very fortunate to live in the shadow of the Rotunda, quite literally, during the time we were honored to live in Pavilion I,” Beardsley said. “It is an architectural and historic treasure, but I think what truly makes the Rotunda special is its place in the academic life at UVA. The renovation preserved the centerpiece of the Academical Village and opened more spaces for students and our community. It has always been and will always be the heart of the University.”

Sullivan retired from the presidency of UVA in 2018 and was honored with the title of president emerita.

She considers the Rotunda renovation as one of her administration’s finest achievements.

Images for this story were taken by photographers Anna Wesolowska, Dan Addison, Sanjay Suchak and Lathan Goumas.