Washington.
Written into the Constitution of the United States (1787) was the authority to establish a federal district for the new nation. New York City had most recently been serving as the capital, with other large cities interested in procuring the role. The fairest solution appeared to be establishing a new federal district and city so that no single state or city would have to be favoured over another.
A predicament arose regarding where to place the capital in a nation already showing sharp divisions between north and south. Southern states had mostly paid off their debt accumulated during the Revolutionary War, while northern states had not. The northern states were interested in the new federal government assuming their remaining debt, which the south opposed. A compromise was reached when the south agreed to have the federal government assume the northern states' debt in return for a federal district located further south.
In the end, the specific site was chosen by George Washington, the nation's first president, and land was ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia for the new federal district in 1791. The same year, Washington appointed Pierre Charles L'Enfant as the designer of the new city. L'Enfant was a French-born architect, and had fought in the Revolutionary War.
L'Enfant's design carried forward the Baroque patterns found at Versaille and St. Petersburg, only on a far larger scale. All of the key elements of Baroque planning were integrated here: Monumental axes, attention to terrain and vistas and generous space allowed for streets and green space. Although Baroque design was conceived within the realms of monarchs and autocrats, it was readily appropriated to celebrate and highlight the visibility of democratic institutions. http://www.museumofthecity.org
While L'Enfant's plan provided the framework for Washington, there was no strong hand dictating how growth should occur within the city. Thus, development was haphazard and unorganized. This became a point of contention with L'Enfant, who was dismissed from his post shortly after the city had been established. Replacing him was Andrew Ellicott, a surveyor who had worked alongside L'Enfant. For all intents and purposes, adherence to L'Enfant's street plan continued under Ellicott's direction.
L'Enfant's plan of Washington, DC. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Other cities presented in this exhibit had strong guidance over the character of the buildings within the core, with little to no regulation over construction in rapidly expanding metropolitan areas around them. Washington's case was different. The plan was spacious enough to account for population growth within its boundaries for several decades. However, little control was taken to guide the aesthetics and character of the growth. This led to Charles Dickens' observing in 1842, that the city contained "spacious avenues that begin in nothing and lead nowhere; streets a mile long that only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need only a public to be complete, and ornaments of great thoroughfares that need only great thoroughfares to ornament." (Mumford).
By the turn of the 20th century, many parts of the plan had yet to be implemented. Due to a new interest in city planning engendered by the City Beautiful movement, there was momentum for revisiting and reimagining the monumental core of the city. Under a 1902 plan named for Senator James McMillan, who was chair of the Senate Committee for the District of Columbia (the name of the federal district), emphasis was placed on the Mall, a linear green space. This led to razing of lower quality structures built in the area, to be replaced with monumental architecture in the mold of City Beautiful.
The McMillan Plan for Washington, DC. Drawing from the City Beautiful movement, the plan emphasized development along the National Mall.
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