PRELIMINARY STUDIES
When the city of Washington was planned under the direct and minute supervision of President Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson, the relations that should exist between the Capitol and the President’s House were closely studied. On August 7, 1791, L’Enfant sent a sketch to President Washington, with a note, “the plan altered agreeable to your suggestion.” Indeed, the whole city was planned with a view to the reciprocal relations that should be maintained among public buildings. Vistas and axes; sites for monuments and museums; parks and pleasure gardens; fountains and canals—in a word, all that goes to make a city a magnificent and consistent work of art were regarded as essential. Thus, aside from the pleasure and the positive benefits to health that the people derive from public parks in a capital city like Washington, there is a distinct use of public spaces as the indispensable means of giving dignity to Government buildings and of making suitable connections between the great departments.
The original plans were prepared after due study of great models. The stately art of landscape architecture had been brought oversea by royal governors and wealthy planters, and both Washington and Jefferson were familiar with the practice of that art.
On September 8, 1791, it was decided by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, and James Madison, in conference with the Commissioners of the District of Columbia—
to name the streets of the Federal City alphabetically one way and numerically the other from the Capitol and that the name of the City and Territory shall be the City of Washington and the Territory of Columbia.
The city had also been divided into four sections—namely, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest—with the Capitol as the center and North and South Capitol Streets dividing the east and west sections and East Capitol Street and the Mall the north and south sections.
BUILDING REGULATIONS ISSUED BY PRESIDENT WASHINGTON
SKETCH OF THE L’ENFANT PLAN
Chapter IV
MAJ. PIERRE CHARLES L’ENFANT
Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant was born in Paris August 2, 1754, the son of an academician, who was “Painter in ordinary to the King in his Manufacture of the Gobelins,” with a turn for landscape and especially for battles, as is shown by the collections at Versailles and Tours. Trained as a French military engineer, young L’Enfant at the age of 23 obtained a commission as a volunteer lieutenant in the French colonial troops, serving at his own expense.
MAJ. PIERRE CHARLES L’ENFANT
L’Enfant preceded Lafayette to America by a month. Arriving in 1777, he entered the Continental Army at his own expense. In February 1778 he was made a captain of engineers and as such proved his valor in battles about Charleston, where he was wounded and was included in the capitulation and exchanged. He was made a major in 1783.
He was “artist extraordinary” to the Army, drawing likenesses (including one of Washington at Valley Forge), decorating ballrooms, and building banquet halls. Then by turn he became a drillmaster, like Von Steuben. When peace was declared he made a brief visit to France to see his father and, incidentally, to establish the Society of the Cincinnati in France and procure the gold eagles he had designed as insignia of the organization. Then he returned to remodel the New York City Hall for the reception of the first Congress of the United States, a building of such beauty never before having been seen by the assembled representatives of the people. L’Enfant was an artist, and this Washington knew when he selected him to design the Federal City. He was imbued with the artistic development of Paris, with its fine central composition from the Tuileries to the Arch of Triumph, the beauty of the Champs Elysees, the Place de la Concorde and adjacent great buildings as the Louvre; and with Versailles, built by Louis XIV, with its fountains, terraces, gardens, and parks, which still thrill thousands of visitors each year. He understood the art of city planning.
L’Enfant was long maturing in his mind the plan he so quickly put on paper. In September, 1789, while yet the idea of creating a capital city was still in the air, he wrote to President Washington asking to be employed to design “the Capital of this vast Empire.” The nations of Europe wondered at the probable future of the new Republic. Visualizing the future, L’Enfant wrote:
No nation ever before had the opportunity offered them of deliberately deciding upon the spot where their capital city should be fixed, or of considering every necessary consideration in the choice of situation; and although the means now within the power of the country are not such as to pursue the design to any great extent, it will be obvious that the plan should be drawn on such a scale as to leave room for that aggrandizement and embellishment which the increase of the wealth of the Nation will permit it to pursue to any period, however remote.
Major L’Enfant, a man of position and education and an engineer of ability, was also familiar with those great works of the master Le Nôtre, which are still the admiration of the traveler and the constant pleasure of the French people. Moreover, from his well-stocked library Jefferson sent to L’Enfant plans “on a large and accurate scale” of Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Carlsruhe, Strasburg, Orleans, Turin, Milan, and other European cities, at the same time felicitating himself that the President had “left the planning of the town in such good hands.”
Thereupon the name of L’Enfant became, and has since remained, inseparably associated with the plan and development of the Nation’s Capital. He was gifted but eccentric, a characteristic that got him into many and serious difficulties.
President Washington had high regard for him and wrote of him as follows:
Since my first knowledge of the gentleman’s abilities in the line of his profession, I have viewed him not only as a scientific man, but one who added considerable taste to professional knowledge, and that, for such employment as he is now engaged in—for projecting public works and carrying them into effect—he was better qualified than anyone who had come within my knowledge in this country, or indeed in any other, the probability of obtaining whom could be counted upon. I had no doubt at the same time that this was the light in which he considered himself; and of course he would be tenacious of his plans as to conceive they would be marred if they underwent any change or alteration. * * * Should his services be lost, I know not how to replace them.
Chapter V
THE L’ENFANT PLAN
The L’Enfant plan, as before stated, was prepared for the Federal City under the direction of President Washington and Thomas Jefferson in 1791 by Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, and applied to the 10 miles square set apart as Federal territory and called the District of Columbia. This was the first and most comprehensive plan ever designed for any city. It was a masterpiece of civic design. As originally drawn it extended only to Florida Avenue NW. and was designed for a city of 800,000, the size of Paris at the time. It was submitted to Congress by President Washington on December 13, 1791.
The original plan shows explanatory notes and references by Major L’Enfant, among which he calls attention to the position of the main buildings and squares, the leading avenues, and the plan of intersection of the streets and their width. The avenues were to be 160 feet in width. No city designed merely for commercial purposes would have avenues of such width; hence the whole plan indicates that it was especially designed for the seat of government of the Nation.
There are two great focal points in the L’Enfant plan—the Capitol and the White House—each with its intersecting avenues, that add beauty and charm to the city and at the same time make distant parts of the city easy of access.
The methods and features of L’Enfant’s plan, which included the reports and correspondence between L’Enfant and President Washington, in 1930 were given intensive study by William T. Partridge, consulting architect of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Mr. Partridge’s findings and his review of the features of the plan, which are still possible of attainment, constitute a notable contribution to the research in this field, and we quote at length:
A study of L’Enfant’s plan, as well as a careful reading of his descriptions, shows the effort made to model his design to the existing topography. No mention can be found of Versailles or London as an inspiration. He reiterates again and again in his letters that this plan of his was “original” and “unique.” In a letter to Jefferson requesting some Old World city maps he deprecates any copying and asks for this information only as a means for comparison or to aid in refining and strengthening his judgment.
In order to investigate how far the existing conditions of the site for the Federal City dictated the plan of present Washington, a topographical map of the terrain, as existing at that period, has been carefully prepared from old maps and descriptions and an attempt made with an open mind to follow L’Enfant’s procedure. Much was assumed, only to be corroborated by later study of the original manuscripts and reports. All printed transcriptions of L’Enfant’s reports have been altered by their editors in the effort to interpret L’Enfant’s strange English, a fact leading to misinterpretation on the part of trained architectural commentators dependent solely on these printed transcriptions.
THE L’ENFANT PLAN
TRANSCRIPTION OF NOTES INSCRIBED ON L’ENFANT PLAN
At the convention of the American Institute of Architects held in Washington in 1929, the history and development of the National Capital was the principal topic of discussion. The merits of the plan of L’Enfant were duly acknowledged by all, though emphasis was laid upon the progress of those modern projects sponsored and carried through largely by the efforts of the institute or its individual members. The work of the McMillan Commission and the admirable recommendations of that trained and experienced body, that the “central area” be restored with some resemblance to L’Enfant’s original plan were generally acknowledged. There was no comparison, however, attempted between the proposed plan of L’Enfant and the much-altered modern plan, nor was there discussion in detail of the “public walk” of the original design. The real merit of the original L’Enfant plan was sensed only by one speaker at the convention mentioned, Mr. Medary, when he spoke of the early structures maintaining their places as dominating elements in the original design and confirmed the judgment of L’Enfant “in fitting the plan of the proposed city to the topography of the site.”
There has come down to us only a single manuscript plan which students have accepted as the original design and on which they have based all their comments. This drawing depicts only an intermediate stage of the plan. The first plan was much altered by L’Enfant himself at the request of President Washington, but by a careful study of internal evidence of the later drawing the designer’s masterly original may be restored. Existing documents tell us that not only were considerable changes made in the plan by order of President Washington, but alterations in the layout were also made by L’Enfant’s successors, all of which disturbed considerably its skillful symmetrical fitting to the irregular topography. If this submitted restoration proves correct, there is no ground left for further accusation of his indebtedness to both Versailles and the London plan for minor details. It is the writer’s conclusion that L’Enfant did exactly what he claimed—devised an original plan, entirely unique. He arrived at his parti only after a careful study on the spot of the best sites for the principal buildings, allocated in the order of their importance, and located with consideration of both prominence and outlook. He tied these sites together by means of a rectangular system of streets and again connected them by means of diagonal avenues. The principal avenues followed closely the existing roads. Additional avenues were extended to the “outroads” or city entrances and were laid out primarily for the purpose of shortening communication—an engineering consideration. L’Enfant mentions that the diagonal avenues would afford a “reciprocity of sight” and “a variety of pleasant ride and being combined to insure a rapide Intercourse with all the part of the City to which they will serve as does the main vains in the animal body to diffuse life through smaller vessels in quickening the active motion to the heart.”
The similarity of the angles of the two principal avenues (Pennsylvania east, from Eastern Branch Ferry to the Capitol, and Maryland east, from the Bladensburg Road entrance to the Capitol) which followed closely for some distance the existing roads, doubtless suggested the radial pair-avenue idea. This was entirely accidental and the outgrowth of existing conditions. The system of a rectangular-street plan with radial avenues is not only borne out by the mention he makes himself in his descriptions but was followed by Ellicott in his redrafting of the plan for the engraver.
Our artistic, hasty-tempered genius refused to give Ellicott any documents or any information. Ellicott states in his letters on the subject that, although he was refused the original plan, he was familiar with L’Enfant’s system and had many notes of the surveys he had made of the site himself, so it is possible that the plan was recreated by Ellicott.
Space and time do not permit an excursion into the squabble over this engraved plan. Changes were made in reduction to the proper size of the plate. These changes led to violent protests on the part of L’Enfant, although in later years his memorial states that the changes were not so very damaging. To an architectural mind the alterations in question destroyed the unity and symmetry of the whole, and L’Enfant’s later softened protest can be explained by his desire for payment by Congress. He could not afford at that time to imperil his chances.
In the attempt to find the method by means of which L’Enfant arrived at the system underlying his plan for the city, we are handicapped at the very start by lack of sufficient data for identification of the various plans mentioned in the old records. There was made in Washington, as the work progressed, a large map with numbered squares. Many references are made to this “large plan” in the old correspondence, but it must not be confused with the layout of the original design under discussion. A letter from the commissioners states it was in L’Enfant’s hands some time after his dismissal.
As far as we now know, there is but one original drawing in existence, which, after 100 years of neglect and careless handling, is now sacredly preserved in the Library of Congress. The elaborateness and care shown in the carefully lettered notes and profuse marginal references marks this a presentation copy. This plan included “the alterations ordered by Washington and sent to Philadelphia on August 19, 1791, for transmission to Congress.”