THE CAPITOL GROUP
Naturally the plan of 1901 began at the Capitol. It was recommended that the chief legislative building of the Nation be surrounded by structures dependent on or supplementary to legislative work. The Library of Congress had been completed in 1897. The enjoyment and satisfaction taken in the Library by the thousands of persons from all parts of the country who visit it daily is an indication of the manner in which the American people regard the upbuilding of their Capital. Since the Library Building was designed we have learned lessons of subordination in grouping (as shown in the Senate and House Office Buildings and in the Union Station), and also of restraint in decoration; but the Library contains individual work of the leading painters and sculptors of its era.
UNION SQUARE, PLAN OF 1901
The idea of office buildings for the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives was in mind when the plan was being made, and therefore the areas these buildings would naturally occupy were marked. The three buildings were designed and constructed in such manner as to make them an integral part of the Capitol group. Simple, elegant, and dignified, the Senate and House of Representatives Office Buildings carry on the great tradition established by Washington and Jefferson in the selection of the Thornton design for the original building, and persistently maintained by President Fillmore in the extension of the Capitol by Thomas U. Walter.
By common consent the remaining space facing the Capitol on the east was assigned to a building for the Supreme Court of the United States, which since the removal of the seat of government to the District of Columbia in 1800 occupied the same building with the Congress.
On the south below the House of Representatives Office Buildings the frontage is occupied by nondescript buildings, all undignified and unsightly. The obvious use of this land is building sites and house gardens to balance Union Station Plaza on the north. This also is a project for the future.
THE HEAD OF THE MALL
The area directly west of the Capitol grounds was marked on the L’Enfant map as an open plaza, affording an approach to that building similar to the one on the east. Owing to the slow development of Washington the west front underwent various vicissitudes. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. tracks once were located about on a line with the Peace and Garfield Monuments. The Botanic Garden area was reclaimed from an alder swamp, and the James Creek Canal wound its way through it. A quarter of a century ago the House passed a bill for the removal of the Botanic Garden fence, with the view of giving the public access to that park in the same manner that other parks are open.
The plan of 1901 aimed to restore this area to its intended uses as a broad thoroughfare so enriched with parterres as to form an organic connection between the Capitol Grounds and the Mall. Anticipating the improvement of this square, named Union Square, as outlined in the plan, Congress located therein the memorial to General Grant, the base of which was designed to be used as a reviewing stand, and later a site in the same area was designated for the monument to General Meade. The Grant Memorial was completed a number of years ago, the Meade Monument is also in place, and the Botanic Garden has been relocated south of Maryland Avenue, near the Capitol. The new plan for Union Square as carried out, was made by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1935.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MALL
That section of the Mall between Third and Four-and-a-half Streets has been laid out and planted with elms in accordance with the plan of 1901, and Congress has provided for putting in the roadways. The temporary buildings in the Mall were so located that upon removal the roadways will be in accordance with the Mall plan, and as fast as the buildings are razed the planting of trees can be made. The space between Four-and-a-half and Sixth Streets was so improved and restored during the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1921.
Congress has authorized the occupation of the north side of the Mall between Third and Seventh Streets (former site of the Pennsylvania Station) by the National Gallery of Art, designed by John Russell Pope. Plans for the building approved by the Commission of Fine Arts are classical in style of architecture.
Auditoriums, both large and small, designed for the uses of conventions, inaugural exercises, and meetings of patriotic societies are among the prime necessities of Washington. Such gathering places would meet governmental and semipublic needs and be advantageous to the growth of American feeling.
MALL AND MONUMENT GARDENS, PLAN OF 1901
The space between Third and Seventh Streets, on the south side of the Mall is being considered for the Smithsonian Gallery of Art, authorized by Congress, to house the collections of works of art that have been given to the Nation. The planting and roadways continuous with those already in place on the Mall can then be put in.
The new National Museum Building was the first structure to be located and erected according to the plan of 1901, having been aligned in conformity to the new Mall axis. On the south side of the Mall the new Freer Gallery also conforms to the revised axis. This gallery is a constituent portion of the National Gallery of Art. It represents one of the largest gifts ever made by an individual to the Government. Although comparatively small in extent, both the building itself and the collections now being arranged within it represent the very highest standards of art. Moreover, the Freer Gallery is a type of the small, adequately housed, and well-endowed gallery which doubtless will be established from time to time by private individuals and given to the Nation to be administered by the Smithsonian Institution for the instruction and gratification of the people.
The section of the Mall between Twelfth and Fourteenth Streets is occupied by the Department of Agriculture. The location of the two wings of the building designed to accommodate the administrative offices of the department precipitated a contest, on the result of which depended the fate of the plan of 1901. It was due to the firm stand taken by President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Taft that the location was made in accordance with the plan. That crisis having been met satisfactorily, the future of the Mall scheme was assured, and since then the plan for park connection between the Capitol and the White House has become an established fact.
While L’Enfant had planned a driveway through the center of the Mall, the Mall Plan of 1901 consists of an expanse of undulating green park, a mile in length and 300 feet wide, extending from the Capitol to the Monument. This central green space is bordered by park roads, flanked by four rows of American elms, under the shade of which are walks and resting places. Back of these rows of trees are other roads furnishing access to public buildings like the National Museum, the Department of Agriculture Building, the Freer Gallery, and the National Gallery of Art, which have been located according to the plan.
RESTORING THE MALL AXIS
According to the L’Enfant plan the Monument to George Washington was to be located at the point where a line drawn due west from the center of the Capitol would intersect a line drawn due south from the center of the White House. On these axial relations the Mall composition depended for its effect. The builders of the Washington Monument, despairing of securing adequate foundations in the lowlands at the intersection of the main and the cross axes, located the Monument without regard to points fixed in the plan. Feeling the absolute necessity of restoring these relationships, the Park Commission boldly determined to create a new main axis by drawing a line from the Capitol Dome through the Washington Monument and prolonging it to the shore of the Potomac, where they proposed, on the then unimproved lands dredged from the river to form Potomac Park, a site for a new memorial. Here they placed the long-contemplated memorial to Abraham Lincoln. This they did with full comprehension of the fact that by common consent Lincoln is the one man in the history of this Nation worthy to stand with Washington in the great central composition.
PLAN OF THE MALL
The original intersection had been marked by Thomas Jefferson by a small monument known as the Jefferson Pier. In the McMillan Park Commission plan of 1901 this pier is indicated by a circular pool. That commission, as has been said, restored the cross axis of the Mall, and from the Mall plan of 1901 by actual measurement the Washington Monument is 371.6 feet east of the north and south axis of the White House, and 123.17 feet south of the Capitol axis.
EXTENDING THE MALL AXIS TO THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL
While this location of the Lincoln Memorial commended itself to men like Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Elihu Root, and William H. Taft, it was opposed by many others, who had regard to the immediate future and who did not consider either the historical significance of the situation or the prospective development of Potomac Park, then far from the more populous parts of the city and thus seemingly isolated and remote. The struggle over this location, and indeed over any memorial of an ideal character, was long and bitter. Nor was it ended during the lifetime of Mr. McKim and Mr. Saint-Gaudens. Happily, however, the result was determined in accordance with the commission plan, and to-day no other site seems possible. This was a distinct victory for the plan, virtually insuring the realization of the large scheme as laid out in 1901.
The Park Commission wrote as follows:
From the Monument garden westward a canal 3,600 feet long and 200 feet wide, with central arms and bordered by stretches of green walled with trees, leads to a concourse raised to the height of the Monument platform. Seen from the Monument this canal, similar in character to the canals at Versailles and Fontainebleau in France and Hampton Court in England, introduces into the formal landscape an element of repose and great beauty. At the head of the canal a great rond-point, placed on the main axis of the Capitol and the Monument, becomes a gate of approach to the park system of the District of Columbia. Centering upon it as a great point of reunion are the drives leading southeast to Potomac Park and northwest by the Riverside Drive to the Rock Creek system of parks. From this elevation of 40 feet the Memorial Bridge leads across the Potomac directly to the base of the hill crowned by the mansion house of Arlington.
SITE OF THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, 1901
Crowning the rond-point, as the Arc de Triomphe crowns the Place de l’Etoile at Paris, should stand a memorial erected to the memory of that one man in our history as a nation who is worthy to stand with George Washington—Abraham Lincoln. Whatever may be the exact form selected for the memorial to Lincoln, in form it should possess the quality of universality, and also it should have a character essentially distinct from that of any other monument either now existing in the District or hereafter to be erected. The type which the commission has in mind is a great portico of Doric columns rising from an unbroken stylobate.
The foregoing recommendations were among the fundamentals of the plan of 1901. Ten years were required to embody them in legislation. To-day the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Memorial Bridge are completed along the general lines suggested.
THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, MEMORIAL BRIDGE, AND RIVERSIDE DRIVE, PLAN OF 1901
There are many other features of the McMillan plan that the report of 1901 describes to which attention is called in the subsequent pages of this volume; thus there is the Rock Creek Parkway, the Anacostia Park development, the Fort Drive, the parkway along the Palisades of the Potomac to Great Falls, and the Mount Vernon Highway. The plans for these projects required authorization by Congress and time to make necessary land purchases; but at the present time there is indication that they will be completed in the near future. The day has come when the Greater Washington, or the metropolitan area of Washington, is being brought into the scheme of development of the National Capital.
The plan of 1901 reasserted the authority of the original plan of L’Enfant, extended to meet the needs of the Nation after a century of growth in power, wealth, and dignity, and also marked the path for future development.
THE FUTURE WASHINGTON
Chapter XV
NATIONAL COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS
Immediately after abolishing the Council of Fine Arts President Taft undertook to interest Congress in the establishment of a permanent Commission of Fine Arts. A bill was accordingly presented in the United States Senate by Hon. Elihu Root. In the House of Representatives the bill was sponsored by Hon. Samuel W. McCall. Various amendments were made to the measure in both the Senate and House of Representatives and it was finally adopted by the act approved May 17, 1910, as follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a permanent Commission of Fine Arts is hereby created to be composed of seven well-qualified judges of the fine arts, who shall be appointed by the President, and shall serve for a period of four years each, and until their successors are appointed and qualified. The President shall have authority to fill all vacancies. It shall be the duty of such Commission to advise upon the location of statues, fountains, and monuments in the public squares, streets, and parks in the District of Columbia, and upon the selection of models for statues, fountains, and monuments, erected under the authority of the United States and upon the selection of artists for the execution of the same. It shall be the duty of the officers charged by law to determine such questions in each case to call for such advice. The foregoing provisions of this act shall not apply to the Capitol Building of the United States and the building of the Library of Congress. The Commission shall also advise generally upon questions of art when required to do so by the President, or by any committee of either House of Congress. Said Commission shall have a secretary and such other assistance as the Commission may authorize, and the members of the Commission shall each be paid actual expenses in going to and returning from Washington to attend the meetings of said Commission and while attending the same.
Sec. 2. That to meet the expenses made necessary by this act an expenditure of not exceeding $10,000 a year is hereby authorized.
The duties of the Commission of Fine Arts have been enlarged since then from time to time by Executive orders. Congress has also stipulated in many recent enactments that the plans for certain designated buildings, monuments, etc., must be approved by the Commission before they can be accepted by the Government. The act of May 16, 1930, gives the Commission control over certain portions of the District of Columbia in the matter of private buildings, under what is known as the Shipstead-Luce Act. Reports are published periodically.
The duties of the Commission, therefore, now embrace not only advising upon the location of statues, fountains, and monuments in the public squares, streets, and parks in the District of Columbia, etc., but in fact all questions involving matters of art with which the Federal Government is concerned.
CAPITOL GROUNDS AND UNION STATION PLAZA, 1917
THE MALL, 1930
The Commission has been in existence 29 years, during which time many great artists of this country have served as its members. The membership comprises three architects, a sculptor, a painter, a landscape architect, and a lay member. Congress permits the Commission to hold meetings, including committee meetings, both in and outside of the District of Columbia, thus enabling it to give attention to works of art in any part of the country in which the Government is interested. A meeting of the Commission is usually held in Washington each month, where the public-buildings program and other great projects under way for the development of the National Capital are requiring its particular attention.
In the work of the Commission of Fine Arts we see the splendid results achieved through the collaboration of architects, sculptors, painters, and landscape architects. The Commission exists primarily to serve the Congress and its committees, the President, and the heads of the Government Departments. There are exceptional cases when the Commission of Fine Arts is called upon to advise with reference to fine arts projects submitted by individuals. The Commission aims to maintain standards of taste. The members themselves are prominent in their respective professions and are “well-qualified judges of the fine arts.”
Prior to the establishment of the Commission of Fine Arts it was the practice of Congress when legislation was enacted providing for a public building, a monument, or other work of art to authorize the appointment of a committee to advise it concerning the specific fine arts project. Such a committee was as a rule composed of laymen, unqualified to give advice on matters of art. Thereupon money was appropriated to meet the expenses of a jury of award, in addition to those of the committee; and when the project was completed, the committee disbanded, leaving Congress without a recognized body to whom matters pertaining to the fine arts could be referred, and requiring a repetition of the appointment of a new committee for procuring some new work of art desired by Congress. It was just such a situation as this that existed in 1910 when Senator Root was a member of the Committee on the Library. In a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts at the twenty-fifth anniversary of its establishment in May 1935, Senator Root stated:
Sometime about the early spring of 1910 some Senator had introduced in the Senate a resolution providing for the purchase by the Government of a number of paintings that nobody wanted to buy and under the rule that resolution was referred to the Committee on the Library. The responsibility for protecting the Government against a waste of money was thus thrown upon the Committee.
A little discussion developed the fact that all the members of the Committee had an uncomfortable feeling that the pictures were probably worthless and no such purchase ought to be made but that no member of the Committee felt any such confidence in his own knowledge and judgment about such things as to feel like making a report to the Senate based on his opinion, and maintaining that opinion on the floor. We all felt that the Committee ought to have some way of getting an expert opinion to guide it in making its report.
In the discussion we recalled Theodore Roosevelt’s appointment of a Fine Arts Council, which fell to the ground because it had no legal standing, and we recalled also the advantage received from the report of park development of the informal commission selected by the McMillan Committee, and we finally determined to ask Congress to provide for the appointment of a fine arts commission which would meet the need that our Committee was then experiencing and a similar need which was liable to occur in a multitude of cases under which Government officers had to pass on questions of art without being really competent to perform such a duty. * * * I drafted a very brief statute * * * and a little informal explanation of the need which the Committee felt for expert assistance in the performing of its duties carried the bill through.
And so, without creation of any power of legal compulsion, there was brought to the service of the Government the authority of competent opinion upon questions of art arising in the course of administration, and widespread and habitual deference to such an opinion has saved the Government and the community from God knows how many atrocities.
From the time of its establishment, the Commission has been consulted about every detail of the progress of the Plan of Washington, and also about many works of art for which the Government makes appropriations. This includes also works of art which our Government, as a result of congressional enactment, presents to the governments and the peoples of other countries to express our friendship and good will, or erects for the use of our diplomatic corps abroad, or to perpetuate the memory of our soldiers’ deeds of daring and courage. Good examples are the statue of Leif Ericsson to Iceland, the statue of Henry Clay to Venezuela, the American Embassy Building in Japan, and the World War Memorials in Europe.
In creating the National Capital Park and Planning Commission by act of April 30, 1926, Congress provided that purchases of lands made thereunder shall have the advice of the Commission of Fine Arts. During the years all proposed purchases have been approved. The two Commissions have acted harmoniously in the work of developing the District of Columbia according to carefully devised plans for parks, playgrounds, and highways.
The first project that came before the Commission of Fine Arts, in 1910, was the Lincoln Memorial. The memorial during a period of 12 years had the continual attention of this Commission, and since its dedication on May 30, 1922, it has been recognized as one of the great memorials of the world. In the past 15 years the row of beautiful white marble buildings near the Lincoln Memorial have been built, as also the new Department buildings on Constitution Avenue. These are a part of the great public buildings program that is in progress in the National Capital.
THE CENTRAL COMPOSITION OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
Chapter XVI
ZONING OF THE CAPITAL
Our first President, by proclamation of October 17, 1791 (illustrated on [page 21]), established a height restriction of 40 feet on buildings in the new Capital. Although not a regulation by zones, it might have been the beginning of a zoning policy if the growth of the Capital had been foreseen. However, the restriction was suspended under President Monroe in 1822, and it was not until 1910 that a comprehensive height regulation became effective. The act of 1910 established height limits, depending upon the width of adjacent streets.
The first zoning ordinance for an American city was adopted by New York City in 1916. The World War held the problem of zoning our cities in abeyance. Washington was zoned by the act of 1920. Since then fully 1,500 towns and cities throughout the United States, ranging from 5,000 to 6,000,000 (New York City) in population, have adopted zoning ordinances.
Zoning not only controls the use and development of land but also regulates the height and bulk of buildings, the open spaces which must be provided for light and ventilation, and the density and distribution of population. It is a legislative function under the police power. The usual procedure in establishing zoning control in our cities has been to pass an ordinance under the authority of the State Zoning Enabling Act, dividing the city into use, height, and area districts, throughout each of which the governing regulations are the same. Separate districts are provided for residence, business, and industry. Thus business and industry are excluded from the residence districts. There may or may not be separate districts provided for light and heavy industry, or for local business and general business. The residence district is usually subdivided according to types of dwellings into areas for single-family dwellings, two-family dwellings, multiple-family dwellings, or apartment houses. Multiple-family dwellings are usually excluded from the single-family areas. This practice has received the hearty approval of home owners. Undeveloped land in suburban sections is usually placed in the residence district and restricted to single-family use. If conditions warrant, and there is no opposition from the owners, it may later be rezoned for more profitable multiple-family or business use.