SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

PARK IMPROVEMENT PAPERS. NO. 13.

THE MAKING OF A PLAN FOR WASHINGTON CITY.

By GLENN BROWN, F. A I. A.

[Read before the Columbia Historical Society, January 6, 1902.]

MARCH 8, 1902.-Printed for the use of the committee.

The original map of Washington made in 1791 was the first plan drawn for a capital city of a great nation.

Other capitals have been a growth, beginning as villages without design, or thought of future progress or greatness, and in their gradual development from village to town and their final expansion into cities have been hampered by the original lines of roadways, the gradual addition of streets and suburbs, and the location of more or less important buildings, each roadway, street, or suburb having been laid out according to individual whim, with little or no consideration for a future city that would be a harmonious whole.

Gradual growth often produced picturesqueness; never stateliness. or grandeur such as would befit a capital city. The authorities of many cities, after the countries of which the city was the capital had grown in wealth and power, have attempted with more or less success to remedy this want of a harmonious and effective original plan.

Paris has undergone many of such changes, the later ones under Louis XIV, Napoleon I, Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III. The lastnamed Emperor at enormous expense opened new avenues and boulevards directly through the city, so as to command the view of focal points, and beautified the city with parks and works of art.

Although the effects accomplished in Paris, when viewed in connection with beautiful buildings, majestic arches, graceful columns, artistic statuary, and pleasing gardens, have been greater than similar accomplishments in other cities of the world, Paris is not what it would be if the great architects of building and landscape had been unhampered by existing conditions.

St. Petersburg was selected as the seat of the Russian Government in 1703, and was located on a site where no other city existed. Apparently, little attention was given to its development on broad lines. It grew as other cities have grown, without thought of the grandeur of effect that might have been attained by a well-studied, original and comprehensive plan.

2

PARK SYSTEM OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

London, after the great fire in September, 1666, had an opportunity to make a complete rectification of the unhappy results unavoidable in the plan of a city developed by gradual growth. There was a determined effort made to take advantage of this opportunity. Sir Christopher Wren made a very clever and comprehensive plan, the first plan that I have been able to discover of a city with streets radiating from focal points. (Fig. 1.)

The sites of prominent buildings, monuments, and columns were arranged so as to give pleasing objects of sight at the end of many wistas as well as open spaces which afforded opportunity for a closer view. Unfortunately the plan of Sir Christopher Wren was never executed. The difficulty of adjusting conflicting claims proved insurmountable.

The causes which influenced our forefathers to lay out a city on a grand and comprehensive scale are interesting topics for investigation. The data and precedent from which they evolved the noble plan presented in the map of the city of Washington are fascinating subjects for study.

During the first fifty years of the city's history this greatness of scale and the "magnificent distances" were a constant cause of ridicule with the thoughtless, and sneers from our country and Europe at the magnificent pretensions of the original plan, were frequent on the part of persons who could not appreciate the future of the United States. The grandeur of scale, as well as the character of the scheme which was approved, clearly indicated the confidence of the projectors in the future of our country. It was evidently their judgment that the best plan on a generous scale would not be too good or too large for the future capital of the United States.

General Washington, as a surveyor, a man of rare judgment, broad common sense, and great business capacity, was well fitted to conduct the scheme, and he selected the most skilled members of the profession of architecture and landscape who could be obtained to assist in the making of the city. He cautioned his assistants against vagaries in design and insisted upon following rules and principles as laid down by the older masters in their profession.

Washington was fortunate in securing Peter Charles L'Enfant, with whose skill he was well acquainted, to design the map for the new city. Washington and L'Enfant together made a careful personal study of the ground and located the site for the principle edifices and the focal points. The first or tentative draft was made and submitted to Washington, and after modifications the final map was drawn as we have it to-day. What influenced them in the general arrangement of avenues radiating from focal points of interest? Why was the Mall planned as an approach to the Capitol and the contemplated Washington monument, with a broad and extended vista on their axis?

PARK SYSTEM OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

3

L'Enfant did not attempt to draw up the scheme without carefully studying what had been accomplished in other parts of the world.

What were the sources from which L'Enfant drew his inspiration in designing the plan? To what influence did Washington turn when making his criticism and modifications?

We know that L'Enfant wrote, April 4, 1791, asking Jefferson, Secretary of State, to obtain maps of London, Paris, Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Naples, and Florence, stating that it was not his wish to copy the plan of these cities, but that he might have a variety of schemes for consideration. We know from a letter of Jefferson's, April 10, 1791, that Jefferson sent him from his personal collection maps of the following cities: Frankfort on the Main, Amsterdam, Strassburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons, Montpelier, Marseilles, Turin, and Milan. The probabilities are that Jefferson obtained for L'Enfant the other maps for which a request had been made. A comparison of the maps of the cities mentioned, as well as other cities in Europe, proves that they supplied him with only isolated suggestions for the treatment which was adopted. The maps of London and Paris previous to 1800, clearly illustrate this point.

Paris, as we know it to-day, suggests more forcibly than other cities some of the marked features of Washington, the points of similarity being the Arch of Triumph and the Places of the Nation, the Bastile, Hugo, and the Republic, from which radiate avenues and boulevards. Probably the majority of people of the present day who are familiar with Paris assume that it was there L'Enfant found the idea on which he enlarged in making his design for Washington.

Napoleon I began and Napoleon III completed the system of avenues leading to or radiating from points of interest. L'Enfant's map was engraved in 1792 when the first Napoleon was an unknown man. The Paris of 1791 had nothing in the arrangement of streets which, judging from L'Enfant's design, could have appealed to him. The numerous small squares and the parked way of the Champs Élysées may have suggested and probably did suggest the many small parks as well as the treatment of the Mall, which he adopted in his plan.

The first questions which would have presented themselves to L'Enfant in undertaking the solution of the problem would naturally have been the possible number of residents who might dwell in his city of the future and the size of a city to accommodate them. London in that day had approximately 800,000 inhabitants, and Paris at the same date had approximately 600,000 people. The areas which these cities occupied have been a site for village, town, or city for nearly two thousand years. They represented the capital cities of the two most powerful countries of the world in L'Enfant's time. With this data before him he fixed the area of the new city at about 16 square miles, which would accommodate, on the basis of the population of Paris, 800,000 people.