[East corridor, Great Hall. Vault mosaic with center trophy representing architecture (Latrobe and Walter); left trophy representing natural philosophy (Silliman and Cooke); right trophy representing music (Mason and Gottschalk); and names of Americans distinguished in medicine (Cross, Wood, McDowell, Rush, and Warren). Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.]

Founding fathers wanted the United States to be a complete break from the past and English influences. Jefferson saw architecture as an artistic declaration that the United States was unique and not European. The inspirations for his architectural views were the classic civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome. The “Age of Reason” architects were drawn to the symmetry, clean lines and mathematical preciseness of Greek and Roman buildings. Jefferson probably had the largest architectural library in the United States.