House^Garden 
v>- 
Vol.II FEBRUARY, 1902 No. 2 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY WASHINGTON 
AS PROPOSED BY THE PARK COMMISSION OF 
DANIEL H. BURNHAM FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED, Jr. 
CHARLES F. McKIM AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS 
T HAT the City of Washington may take 
equal rank with the monumental capitals 
of the world is made possible by the work 
of the Park Commission appointed about a 
year ago by the Senate Committee on the 
District of Columbia. An extensive plan 
for the city has been prepared, incorporating 
the chief existing landmarks into one 
harmonious scheme to which future buildings 
may add a beauty of 
completeness. The 
proposed ambitious 
improvements consti¬ 
tute a development 
of the original plan ot 
the city and they aim 
to recover the salient 
features of that 
arrangement. When 
a site by the Potomac 
River was selected in 
1790 for the capital 
city of the United 
States, it was the first 
instance of an entire city’s being designed. 
The ground was free and without hamper¬ 
ing conditions to control the direction 
or character of the future streets or the 
location of the buildings. To design a map 
of the new city, President Washington was 
fortunate in securing Peter Charles L’Enfant, 
a young French engineer officer who had 
done efficient service during the Revolution 
in designing fortifications, and had gained 
quite a reputation in Philadelphia and New 
York as an engineer and architect. The 
extreme novelty of the plan he produced 
makes the sources of his inspiration a matter 
of great interest. He had requested the 
plans of many European cities ot Thomas 
Jefferson, then Secretary of State, but a review 
of the arrangement of these cities shows few 
suggestions of which he actually made use. 
The Champs-Elysees, for the Mall, was the 
only probable one, for it must be remem¬ 
bered that the radiating streets in Paris were 
opened by the first and third Napoleons 
years after the map of 
L’Enfant was drawn. 
The only map of 
a city having focal 
points of interest and 
streets and avenues 
radiating from them 
to which L’Enfant 
could possibly have 
had access was that of 
Sir Christopher Wren 
for the rebuilding of 
London after the great 
fire of 1666. The 
same principle had 
been used with dignified effect by Le Notre 
in his gardens. Whether Wren, who visited 
France in 1665, was inspired to adopt the 
radial system after a study of the gardens in 
that country; whether L’Enfant from a 
knowledge of their beautiful effects was 
tempted to utilize the system for a city ; or 
whether he was influenced in his work by a 
recollection of the gardens and a sight of 
Wren’s plan in the adoption of focal points 
of interest as centers for radial streets must 
remain more or less a matter of conjecture. 
It is a curious fact that while there was no city 
with radial streets in Europe at that period 
SIR CHRISTOPHER WREn’s PLAN OF LONDON 
(Never Executed) 
39 
