The young republic

The new republic sought models in ancient Rome and Greece. Columns and domes were to show that democracy had roots.

Thomas Jefferson designed his home Monticello, the state capitol in Richmond after the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, and the University of Virginia. Pierre L’Enfant planned the capital, Washington, from 1791, with the Capitol and diagonal avenues.

In the 1820s and 30s banks, churches and plantation houses received Greek temple fronts.

• Monticello