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Overview: The 21st-century gateway to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
After nearly a decade of planning, the Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center had its Grand Opening on April 15, 2009. The new center serves as the 21st-century gateway to Jefferson’s timeless Monticello, with multiple components that transform the visitor experience by preparing guests for their trips to the historic mountaintop through dynamic content presenting fresh perspectives on Monticello and the enduring significance of Jefferson’s life and ideas.
The new center gives visitors of all ages distinctive opportunities to become well-acquainted with Jefferson and Monticello at their own pace and on their own terms. Emphasizing the power of place and the strength of ideas, these all-new features highlight Jefferson’s accomplishments, his beliefs about liberty and their global relevance today, the wider community of people – both enslaved and free – who lived on the plantation, and the remarkable house and landscapes of Monticello. Curators and historians on the Monticello staff developed the content of the interpretive and educational elements.
Located on the lower slope of Monticello mountain, the center comprises five pavilions around a central courtyard. The three-level, 42,000-square-foot complex follows the contour of its hillside setting and blends into the wooded landscape with natural building materials, two “green” roofs, and other environmentally sensitive elements.
The center’s visitor amenities include a café with indoor and outdoor seating, a spacious gift shop, and an indoor ticket and information counter.
The largest capital project and the most ambitious educational initiative in the 86-year history of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the new center features:
Four Innovative Exhibitions
- Thomas Jefferson and ‘the Boisterous Sea of Liberty’ illustrates the development and ongoing influence of Jefferson’s core ideas about liberty on a wall of 21 flat-panel LCD screens, including seven interactive touch screens.
- Monticello as Experiment: ‘To Try All Things’ explores Jefferson’s use of Monticello as a laboratory for his belief that “useful knowledge” could make life more efficient and convenient.
- Making Monticello: Jefferson’s ‘Essay in Architecture’ showcases the architectural origins, construction and four-decade evolution of the Monticello house, widely regarded as one of the icons of American architecture.
- The Words of Thomas Jefferson brings Jefferson’s thoughts to light through projection in an innovative display.
Powerful Introductory Film
- Thomas Jefferson’s World, Monticello’s visually rich introductory film, orients all visitors to key notions regarding Jefferson’s ideas and accomplishments, especially his core concepts about liberty that have reached far beyond his place and time in history to the present day while illustrating Monticello’s central importance to his life and work.
New Resources for Young People
- The Griffin Discovery Room gives Monticello visitors – especially those ages 6 to 11 – the chance to literally get in touch with Jefferson’s life and times through hands-on elements and activities, including reproductions from the Monticello house and plantation.
- The new, full-equipped Classrooms in the Carl and Hunter Smith Education Center accommodate an expanded number of student groups and also serve as a venue for workshops and other programs.
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