Times change. History changes. Take Monticello: Thomas Jefferson’s storied home and temple to the republic’s founding has just this year gained a spectacular 42,000-square-foot visitor complex that replaces the small off-site facility. I recently entered the flagstone courtyard, wondering which of five stunning “pavilions” to enter first, and had a flash of déjà vu.

Decades ago, I was first guided through the house by a lady of gentle breeding with the silk-soft accent for which the Old Dominion was famous. While her poise and style were memorable, she proved unable to answer questions more difficult than the color of Jefferson’s hair (red) or the number of words in the Declaration of Independence (1333).

When I revisited Monticello this summer, our T-shirted guide provided both relevant dates (construction began in 1769) and facts (the plantation comprised 5000 acres and a workforce of 120 slaves, one of whom, she volunteered, had borne some of Jefferson’s children). Now, there was an established fact that my guide of yore had never probably even imagined.

Times change, and social norms evolve. History changes because we continue to open new avenues of inquiry, often aided by new research tools. Some of these techniques come from distant disciplines, such as the analysis of DNA, a process barely imagined a generation ago, but now able to prove beyond scientific doubt that some of Sally Hemings’s descendants were from a male Jefferson descendant.

 As history recasts itself, so must the institutions that serve it, and Monticello exemplifies that in its sparkling new Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and those five pavilions (a term borrowed from the architecture of another of the great man’s greatest creations, the University of Virginia). The Dominion Welcome Pavilion sells tickets; the Café at Monticello offers food and drink; the Monticello Museum Shop displays an array of goods, including books, above the ordinary run.

 A fourth pavilion, the beautifully appointed Robert H. and Clarice Smith Gallery, offers illuminating exhibits which describe Jefferson’s intellectual life: his agricultural researches, his inventions, and his architecture, especially Monticello itself. When the first double-porticoed iteration failed to satisfy his widening sense of Georgian perfection, he tore it down and built the mansion we see today with its surmounting dome.

 Entering the Smith Gallery foyer, one is immersed in the founder’s mind and sensibility, thanks to glittering (but silent) multimedia technology. Key words—“America,” “The Arts,” “Conduct,” “Education,” “Government,” “Knowledge,” “Liberty”—are inlaid in the bluestone floor, and when visitors stand on a word, part of a relevant quotation appears in light at their feet; then, the whole quotation moves across the floor and onto a wall. Gimmicky, yes, but compelling, too. Two hundred Jeffersonian statements and ponderings, displayed with his now-idiosyncratic spellings and eccentric punctuation, have been painstakingly transcribed and vetted by scholars at Monticello as they pursue, catalogue, and curate documents from his years of retirement (from 1809 until his death on July 4, 1826).

Nearby, “The Boisterous Sea of Liberty” exhibit employs 21 digital screens that