Assessment of European Architecture

"London, tho handsomer than Paris, is not so handsome as Philadelphia. Their [England] architecture is the most wretched stile I ever saw, no meaning to except American where it is bad, nor even Virginia where it is worse than any other part of America, which I have seen." TJ to John Page, May 4, 1786, Papers, 9:445-46.

"The inhabitants of Europe, who dwell chiefly in houses of stone or brick, are surely as healthy as those of Virginia. These houses have the advantage too of being warner in winter and cooler in summer than those of wood; of being cheaper in their first construction, where line conveninet, and infinitely more durable." Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia ed. by William Peden (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954 [1781, 1787], 154.

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