Architecture

Jaquelin T. Robertson, FAIA AICP

Principal, Cooper, Robertson&Partners, New York

What made New Albany both challenging and fulfilling to all of us involved in its design was working within one of the West’s strongest and most virile architectural traditions, Georgian Palladianism.

It is a tradition that has had continuity for over 500 years and was, from the beginning, a mainstream of American architectural culture.

It seemed quite natural that if one were going to build a fine country community, the most trusted style to turn to would be the one that we have probably spent more time developing than any other; a style we instinctively understand. There is in American Georgian architecture a harmonious relationship between buildings and the land which everyone seems drawn to, as any trip to the Virginia Tidewater and Piedmont will attest. For this kind of community, we wanted to tap into a strong root system; something very stable at a time of too much random, helter-skelter, trendy development; a familiar language for healthy familiar lives.