Washington D.C & Paris

History of Town Planning

Prepared by :Reshmi RPraleen PriyakumarDhanya PoduvalOshin NairRoshan RaghunathanAnjaly elizabath PaulShrishti ShettyAkash JohnPranjali ThakreSarvesha ZapardePooja Sawant

Paris

Historical background

3rd century B.C.Settlement by a Celtic fishermen.

52 B.C.Julius Caesar seizes the city.

Around 250 A.D. Paris Christianised.

4th-9th centuries: Frankish and Norman invasions.

1163: Construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral begins.

Late 14th centuryBlack Death.

July 14, 1789French revolution Fall of bastile

Evolution of planning •  Paris was born with the development of the villages on La Cite. But it got its name

Paris, only in the 4th century from its former name Lutetia. • Early Parisians were fishermen, farmers, foresters, herdsmen and boatmen who

had prospered on the banks of the river Seine. In 51 B.C. the Romans conquered Lutetia.

1.The first medieval town wall, built around 1200. 2. The second medieval wall from the end of the fourteenth century, which under Louis XIV made way for the promenades. 3. The tariff wall of 1780, demolished in the 1860s. 4. The ring of fortifications of the 1840s, later in 1860 to become the municipal and tariff border

• Under the Roman Empire the region had prospered as a junction between the North-South and the Seine. La Cite was enclosed in a wall due to persistent attacks from the barbarians.

• The Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century and the Merovingian's and the Carolingians came into power.

• In the 9th century Paris was pillaged and ransomed by the Vikings. Crucial architectural development stated during the reign of Philippe August in the 12th century. A second wall was constructed around the city that had, by then, increasingly expanded to the North and the South of the Seine.

• New growth sprung up along the major roads, because of inadequate space inside the city.

• The administration of Paris was reorganized in the year 1261 and was divided between the provost King (affairs of the state) and the provost merchant (local affairs). Thus we can see the organizational change of power where the merchants are allotted some power. Also for the fiscal register were furnished to list the taxpayers and the numbers of households. Social and political changes during the same century helped bringing about the building of cathedrals, excellence of the universities, the proliferation of colleges and convents, the installation of mendicant order and the flowering of Gothic.

Evolution of planning

• Towards the end of the seventeenth century Paris, together with Vienna, was probably the most heavily developed town in Europe. Houses were being built higher and higher, the courtyards becoming more cramped and the traffic more chaotic in the narrow streets.

• Victoires, designed and built in the 1680s under the direction of J.H. Mansart by order of the Marechal de la Feuillade. The architecture was of uniform design, and the centre of the square was occupied by a statue of Louis XIV being crowned with a laurel wreath by a flying figure of Victory.

• By the end of the Middle Ages Paris had become a complex urban structure consisting of several core settlements now joined to one another. Apart from some of the churches there were practically no monumental accents. The old, spontaneously evolving network of narrow and twisty streets, most of which ran parallel or away from the bank of the river, was already inadequate

• In the 14th yet century another wall was built in northern Paris. The city was developing into a center of finance and a principal diplomatic center in Europe.

Evolution of planning •The along side map shows the intersection of two movement system ,where the old Roman roads cross the River Seine.• This established the design centre and the line of force leading to the formation of orientation for the classical Roman city

•This map shows the Medieval Paris as it was from 1367 to 1383.•The ancient crossing determines the centre of the tightly developed town •The wall defining the area of intensity at the juncture of the movement system•The inner dotted line shows the position of the first wall built north of the river •The pressure of city growth continued and the walls were further extended

Paris in 1300•A medieval walled city developed around the crossing of the River Seine •The Louvre palace is the point of origin of the design forces

Paris in 1600•White line indicates the position of wall during 1300•The grey shows the outward extension to the new wall due to the pressure of city growth

Evolution of planning

• Proper water mains and sewage system were prescribed in the plan.

• Narrow and polluted streets.• Regular grid housing blocks.

1760

1765

• New principal streets were added.

• More round open spaces were prescribed.

• No pedestrian footpath.• Busy food market around the

open spaces.1834

• New market halls were introduced in order avoid the cramped market places along the streets.

• Proper water conduits prescribed.

• New sewage system prescribed due to deterioration of sewage system introduced earlier.

Planning principlesBelow : Île de la Cité, 1754. Along side: after Haussmann’s regulations. 1. Sainte Chapelle. 2. Notre-Dame. 3. Hôtel-Dieu. 4. Palais de Justice. 5. Place Dauphine. 6. Tribunal de Commerce. 7. Caserne de la Cité (now Préfecture de Police). The letters designate bridges. [From Lameyre (1958)]

• Buildings, politics, and aesthetics:  Haussmann envisioned a city focused visually and functionally on major institutions like RR stations; the opera house, the town hall, the cathedral, etc.; major architectural units linked by great avenues; also monuments like Notre Dame isolated and turned into museum pieces

Planning principles• During a time of industrial change and cultural advancement, Paris became the

new home for many, overcrowding the ancient districts and spreading disease. The city, which had been untouched since the Middle Ages, was in dire need of reflecting the new modern ways and putting an end to the spreading medical epidemics. The tight confines of Medieval Paris were hindering the city’s potential for growth and desire to transform into a well-organized urban center. Napoleon III set about bringing order and structure to the chaotic, cramped city and putting an end to its' identity crisis

• Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, chosen by Napoleon III to lead the project, created new roads, public parks, public monuments, as well as installing new sewers and changing the architectural façade of the city. With the aid of the public, Modernist Napoleon III set out to undertake one of the largest urban transformations since the burning of London in 1666.

• In 1853, Haussman had outlined and began construction on a series of basic projects that had been planned since the decision had been made to modernize the city. The projects included creating a north-south axis in the city, developing the quarters around the Opéra, as well as “the annexation of the suburbs to make them outer arrondissements, the sewer system, and the water supply

• The next step in Haussmann’s plan for the new Paris was to divide the city into arrondissements, or districts. The decision to divide Paris into these new districts came about in 1853, at the same time as the decision to modernize the city completely. The plan “implied the destruction of the old, heterogenous quarters in the city center and the creation of large new quarters implicitly dividing the population by economic status.

• To accompany the new streets and provide visual unity to the entire city, Haussmann and his team of architects constructed a unifying architectural façade that changed the shape of Paris. As well as coating the city with a unifying style, they also constructed new public buildings, such as L’Opéra , as well as many other buildings

Paris before Haussmann

• In the middle of the nineteenth century, the center of Paris was overcrowded, dark, dangerous, and unhealthy.

• The street plan on the ÎIe de la Cité and in the neighbourhood called the quarter des Arcis, between the Louvre and the Hotel de Ville, had changed little since the Middle Ages.

• The population density in these neighbourhoods was extremely high, compared with the rest of Paris; in the neighbourhood of the Champs-Élysées, there was one resident for every 186 square meters; in the neighbourhoods of Arcis and Saint-Avoye, in the present Third Arrondissement, there was one inhabitant for every three square meters.

• In these conditions, disease spread very quickly. Cholera epidemics ravaged the city in 1832 and 1848. In the epidemic of 1848, five percent of the inhabitants of these two neighbourhoods had died.

• Traffic circulation was another major problem. The widest streets in these two neighbourhoods were only five meters wide; the narrowest were only one or two meters wide. Wagons, carriages and carts could barely move through the streets.

• The center of the city was also a cradle of discontent and revolution; between 1830 and 1848, seven armed uprisings and revolts had broken out in the centre of Paris.

• On 10 December 1848, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, won the first direct presidential elections ever held in France with an overwhelming 74.2 percent of the votes cast. He was elected largely because of his famous name, but also because of his promise to try to end poverty and improve the lives of ordinary people.

• As soon as he was President, he supported the building of the first subsidised housing project for workers in Paris, the Cité-Napoleon, on the Rue Rochechouart. He proposed the completion of the Rue de Rivoli from the Louvre to the Hotel de Ville, completing the project begun by his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte, and he began a project to build a large new public park, the Bois de Boulogne, modelled after Hyde Park in London but much larger, on the west side of the city. He wanted both these projects to be completed before the end of his term in 1852, but became frustrated by the slow progress made by his prefect of the Seine, Berger.

• Napoleon III dismissed Berger as the Prefect of the Seine and sought a more effective manager. His minster of the interior, Victor de Persigny, interviewed several candidates, and selected George Eugene Haussmann, the prefect of Bordeaux, who impressed Persigny with his energy, audacity, and ability to overcome or get around problems and obstacles.

Initial planning and execution

• Haussmann moulded the city into a geometric grid, with new streets running east and west, north and south, dividing Medieval Paris into new sections. His plan brought symmetry to the city, something it was lacking beforehand.

• During a time when the city was filled to the brim with people, disease was a large risk. The widening of the streets would relieve the cramped city and allow for the people to get around more easily.

• It also allowed for an increase in height of the buildings, providing more room for the people of Paris to live and thrive in.

• Running alongside the new roads, which had been widened to accommodate the rising number of people living within the city limits, were rows of chestnut trees, which allowed Haussmann to maintain the geometric and symmetrical aesthetic that he had created with the new roads.

• Where he struggled to maintain his visual order, new public spaces and monuments were erected.

• He was also responsible for isolating Notre-Dame from the city, emphasizing its’ importance to the city.

• The next step in Haussmann’s plan for the new Paris was to divide the city into arrondissements, or districts.

• The districts started inward, on the banks of the Seine, and spiralled outwards.

• The plan “implied the destruction of the old, heterogenous quarters in the city center and the creation of large new quarters implicitly dividing the population by economic status.”

• The original plan called for twelve districts, but in 1860, Paris annexed surrounding communities and was divided into twenty districts.

• Plan of Paris

Initial planning and execution

• With the division of the city into arrondissements came the need for a new water and sewer system. Aided by his chief engineer Eugene Belgrand, Haussmann developed and began construction in 1857 on a larger sewer system that could handle the large amounts of wastewaters coming from the growing city that would be funneled into the Seine downstream from Paris.

• With the growing popularity of water closets, particularly in the richer Parisian districts, came a need to funnel human waste into the sewer system as well. The proposal to channel human faeces into the sewers that would mix with the storm water and flow into the Seine was an idea Haussmann objected to.

• To maintain the order of the water and the urban space, Haussmann viewed it as necessary to keep the clean water separate from the dirty water.

• Also by utilizing the new sewer system for human waste, the city would become cleaner and more sterile, eliminating the smell of rotting waste and lowering the threat of disease from living in cramped, contaminated quarters.

• To accompany the new streets and provide visual unity to the entire city, Haussmann and his team of architects constructed a unifying architectural façade that changed the shape of Paris.

• As well as coating the city with a unifying style, they also constructed new public buildings, such as L’Opéra , as well as many other buildings.

• With the widening of the Parisian streets, Haussmann and his crew were able to add an extra story of height to the buildings that lined the roads. The additional height increased the amount of living space within the city limits, easing up on the overcrowding, but not changing the affordability of the housing.

• They are noted by their simple decoration and adherence to the classical style. An emphasis on the horizontal can be seen in the façade, following the horizontal of the streets they sat next to, adding to the symmetry and geometric unity that Haussmann wanted the new Paris to have.

• Haussmann also created twenty-four new squares; seventeen in the older part of the city, eleven in the new arrondissements, adding 150,000 square meters of green space.

• The Bois de Boulogne was inspired by Hyde Park in London, and was designed to provide rest and relaxation for families of all classes of Parisians.(shown below)

Planning

The first map is of Pre-Haussmann Paris

Initial planning and execution

• With the rise of the nouveux riches came the need for hôtels or living spaces for the rich within the city. Unlike the simple, austere apartment houses, no expense was spared on decoration and they were constructed in the most fashionable districts within Paris. They were not neoclassical in style like the apartments, but a mixture of early Renaissance and the ornate baroque style. The hôtels were symbols of wealth and status and the rising modernity in Paris.

• Since the undertaking of the modernization of Paris in the 1850’s, Haussmann’s name has become ubiquitous with urban planning. With the help and approval of Napoleon III, Haussmann was able to transform an entire city in a period of twenty years.

• The once Medieval city was now a modern power house with room to grow. The redistricting of the city, building of new roads, monuments, public spaces and places, as well as new public works buildings and a new sewer system all added to the grandeur of the city.

• Haussmann not only improved the appearance of Paris, but also the health of the people. By widening the streets and building more housing, he eased the overcrowding and lowered the threat of disease.

• The new sewer system also helped create a cleaner Paris by channeling the waste water and human waste away from the city to ease on the smell and the dirt that would make Paris seem uncivilized. Haussmann’s new buildings proved to be more functional and stronger than the previous buildings in Paris.

• Modern day Paris

Problems faced by Haussmann while executing his plan

• Despite his desire to create a well organized and symmetrical city, his lack of skills as an urban planner got the best of him and he was forced to work around existing streets in order to adhere to his desire for symmetry in the city.

• The existing architecture in Paris proved to be his greatest enemy when laying out the new roads.

• The respect for the ancient monuments outweighed the need to unify the city completely and the river Seine served as a natural barrier separating the two sides of Paris and the roads that once had the ambition to link the two riverbanks.

• With this magnificent transformation of Paris into a modern city, came a big budget. According to the article “Money and Politics in the Rebuilding of Paris, 1860-1870,” Haussmann calculated in 1869 that the cost of rebuilding Paris since the project’s beginning in 1851 was to be 2,500,000,000 francs.

• Haussmann and Napoleon III did not forsee the project costing this much and had not raised the amount of money needed to pay for all of their construction. With the addition of new elements to the project, the budget only soared. Many people living in Paris during the time felt that Haussmann and crew had lied to them about the costs of the renovations and felt that the city had been paralyzed by the never ending construction.

• Haussmann did not have time to finish the third phase of his planning, as he soon came under intense attack from the opponents of Napoleon III.

• Georges-Eugene Haussmann, the Prefect of the Seine under Napoleon III

Paris post Haussmann

• In the parliamentary elections of May 1869, the government candidates won 4.43 million votes, while the opposition republicans won 3.35 million votes. In Paris, the republican candidates won 234,000 votes to 77,000 for the Bonapartist candidates, and took eight of the nine seats of Paris deputies.

• At the same time Napoleon III was increasingly ill, suffering from gallstones which were to cause his death in 1873, and preoccupied by the political crisis that would lead to the Franco-Prussian War.

• In December 1869 Napoleon III named an opposition leader and fierce critic of Haussmann, Emile Ollivier, as his new prime minister. Napoleon gave in to the opposition demands in January 1870 and asked Haussmann to resign. Haussmann refused to resign, and the Emperor reluctantly dismissed him on 5 January 1870.

• In his memoires, written many year later, Haussmann had this comment on his dismissal: "In this eyes of the Parisians, who like routine in things but are changeable when it comes to people, I committed two great wrongs; over the course of seventeen years I disturbed their daily habits by turning Paris upside down, and they had to look at the same face of the Prefect in the Hotel de Ville. These were two unforgiveable complaints."

• Haussmann's successor as prefect of the Seine appointed Jean-Charles Alphand, the head of Haussmann's department of parks and plantations, as the director of works of Paris. Alphand respected the basic concepts of his plan. Despite their intense criticism of Napoleon III and Haussmann during the Second Empire, the leaders of the new Third Republic continued and finished his renovation projects.

Haussmann's boulevards crisscross Paris, seen from the top of the Tour Montparnasse.

Boulevard

The thick lines represent Haussmann boulevard

Boulevard• Haussmann molded the city into a

geometric grid, with new streets running east and west, north and south, dividing Medieval Paris into new sections. His plan brought symmetry to the city

• The widening of the streets would relieve the cramped city and allow for the people to get around more easily. It also allowed for an increase in height of the buildings, providing more room for the people of Paris to live and thrive in. Running alongside the new roads,were rows of chestnut trees, which allowed Haussmann to maintain the geometric and symmetrical aesthetic that he had created with the new roads. And where he struggled to maintain his visual order, new public spaces and monuments were erected.

Roads and Transport

Streets included in Haussmann’s improvement and regularization program. White sections of street were built before 1854, solid black sections before 1870 and dotted sections after the fall of the Second Empire, but still largely in accordance with Haussmann’s intentions. The hatched area indicates the municipality of Paris up to 1860, when the municipal boundary was extended to the outer fortification ring.

A map of Haussmann’s streets confusing impression. However, a closer examination does reveal, if not any superordinate plan, at least a guiding idea, namely to facilitate communications within the central parts of Paris and between these areas and the peripheral districts of the city.

Washington

Location

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Country : United states of America

Approved on: July 16 , 1970

Named after : George Washington

The District is bordered by, Maryland, to the northwest; Prince George's County, Maryland, to the east; and Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia, to the south and west.

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Historical background

17th centuryVarious tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands

January 23, 1788James Madison argued the necessity for a national capital.

July 16, 1790Foundation of the District Capital

August 24–25, 1814 The Civil War and Raid known as the Burning of Washington

Organic Act of 1871 individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia.

Early 1900Washington was the first city in the nation to undergo urban renewal projects as part of the "City Beautiful movement"

April 4, 1968The assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, broke riots in the district

1973Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act

Geography Natural resources

Washington, D.C., is located in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. East Coast. Due to the District of Columbia retrocession, the city has a total area of 68.3 square miles (177 km2), of which 61.4 square miles (159 km2) is land and 6.9 square miles (18 km2) (10.16%) is water .

The Potomac River forms the District's border with Virginia and has two major tributaries: the Anacostia River and Rock Creek.

Tiber Creek, a natural watercourse that once passed through the National Mall, was fully enclosed underground during the 1870s. The creek also formed a portion of the now-filled Washington City Canal, which allowed passage through the city to the Anacostia River from 1815 until the 1850s.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal starts in Georgetown and was used during the 19th century to bypass the Great Falls of the Potomac River, located upstream (northwest) of Washington at the Atlantic Seaboard fall line.

The highest natural elevation in the District is 409 feet (125 m) above sea level at Fort Reno Park in upper northwest Washington. The lowest point is sea level at the Potomac River. The geographic centre of Washington is near the intersection of 4th and L Streets NW.

The District has 7,464 acres (30.21 km2) of parkland, about 19% of the city's total area and the second-highest percentage among high-density U.S. cities.

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Architectural character

Washington is made up of five types of building blocks, the party- wall office building, the row home, the dethatched bungalow, the neo- classical institution, and the urban villa.

Each makes a distinctive type of block and fabric. The attached buildings have given Washington the necessary density to make it second only to Manhattan in terms of jobs located in its urban center.

The neoclassical institution and urban villas serve a symbolic purpose idealizing the democratic values the new nation proported to embody.The detatched home was a typical trend in suburban development in this country as residential neighbourhoods attempted to maintain a pastoral ideal while remaining in close proximity to the urban economy. A reliable public transit infrastructure has made these neighbourhoods some of the most desirable in the district.

The party wall office building maximizesthe real estate in downtown Washington. Building heights are limited to 135 feet (40.5m). Office buildings typically have retail on the first floor in addtion to lobbies.

The party wall rowhome was the traditional housing stock of Washington throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Though heights varied, many had basement apartments with seperate entry.

The detatched house was introduced inthe outskirts of the District in the early Twentieth Century. Originally laid out in traditional blocks with similar setbacks, the block gave way to the suburban serpentine street system typical of the mid and late Twentieth Century. This building type does not occur within the section of the city planned by L’Enfant.

Demand for stately space in the Capitaldrove the development of Urban Villas, which were detached buildings with a processional entramce. Often housing either diplomatic or charitable functions, these are most prevelant on 16th Street and Embassy Row along Wisconsin Avenue.

The L’Enfant and Ellicott PlansAt the request of George Washington, Pierre L'Enfant, a French volunteer in the continental army, presented a baroque city plan for the new capital inspired by French city planning, particularly the plan of cantaloupe. The city is oriented north along 16 th street and bounded by the Potomac and Anacostia rivers and boundary street, which follows the base of the piedmont escarpment.

Thomas Jefferson was able to persuade the Congress to grant a Southern site for the new Capital, but lost out on both his own plan for the new city as well as a design for the Capitol building submitted anonymously . Notoriously difficult to work with, L’Enfant, despite Washington’s favor, was eventually dismissed from the project and the final plan for the city was based on surveys conducted by Andrew Ellicott with modifications made by Jefferson, which shifted and straightened Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Avenues as well as eliminating the destination quality of the reservations L’Enfant had set aside for “Statues, Columns, Obelisks, or any other ornaments such as the different states may choose to erect.”

Jefferson’s PlanShown in the same scale as the L’Enfant plan, Jefferson’s plan was the first of a long discourse over what the identity of the Capital would be, urban or pastoral. Jefferson’s plan would have been a series of 600 x 600 ft blocks, anchored on either end by governmental buildings.

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Evolution of planning 1791-1800

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Evolution of planning 1860

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Evolution of planning 1800- 1860

Bird’s-Eye View of the City of Washington, D.C. and the Seat of War in Virginia

City of Washington from Beyond the Navy YardFrom the perspective on the other side of the Anacostia River, one can see the Capitol, the buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue, and the White House in 1834.

Mall featured serpentine paths through pastoral plantings of trees and past irregularly shaped water features.

This Bird’s-Eye drawing looking south shows the emergence of the Mall as a civic space by 1860. Englishman James Smithson’s bequest to the United States for a national museum prompted deliberate consideration on how to treat the Mall.

During this period, the Capitol Dome expansion, utilizing new steel structural technology, began, as did construction of Robert Mill’s Washington Monument.

Most of the development came in the form of Governmental buildings, though a dry-dock is visible in the foreground.

Andrew Jackson Downing, at the request of Millard Fillmore, produced a plan for the Mall and the parks north and south of the White House. Downing’s work exemplifies the “natural landscape” trend of the time, heavily influenced by Cambridge’s Mt. Auburn Cemetery and pastoral notions of the young nation. In opposition to L’Enfant’s geometric plan for the city, Downing’s

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Evolution of planning 1900

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Evolution of planning 1860-1900Our National Capital, View from the South

This Bird’s-eye view to the North shows the development of the Mall and the neighborhood between it and Pennsyvania Avenue, considered one of the most dangerous and squalid in the city.In the years after the Civil War, Washington engaged in a massive public work program to upgrade the infrastructure needed to maintain hygeine in a tropical area. The influx of workers and free blacks to the city increased the population and spurred growth of the city.The investment in governmental buildings earlier in the Century was now paying out as the city grew up around them through private means.Olmstead, Sr. Plan for the Capitol GroundsDespite Washington’s emergence as an urban center, Olmstead’s plan for the Capitol Grounds toa distictively pastoral approach and was a precursor to the McMillan commission plan for the entire Federal Area.

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Evolution of planning 1940

Figure Ground, 1940

The impact of the McMillan plan was immediate, as evidenced in the figure ground. The neighborhood between the Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue was cleared and claimed for governmental functions. The Lincoln Memorial now anchors the Mall on the West, facing the Capitol, which now has a sight-line with the Daniel Burnham-designed Union Station to its Northeast. The comb-looking structures on the Mall were temporary housing units set up for military use.

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Evolution of planning 1900-1940

Perspective and Plan for McMillan Plan

The McMillan Plan envisioned a Federal District set apart from the rest of the city based on City Beautiful premises. Emphasis was placed on unifying the Mall and claiming the area between Pennsylvania Avenue and the Mall for Federal business. The Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials would form new end-points for the civic structure.The Mall as envisioned by the McMillan Commission is pretty much as it is today. The area on either side of the Mall is strictly for Federal uses and the Mall itself is home to the Smithsonian Museums and any number of monuments.The combination of the McMillan improvements, FDR’s expansion of the Federal Government, and the impending War led to a rapid increase of population by 1940.

The design for the city of Washington was largely the work of Pierre (peter) Charles L'Enfant, a French-born architect, engineer, and city planner.

The plan for Washington dc was modelled in the baroque style and incorporated avenues radiating out from rectangles, providing room for open space and landscaping. 

L'Enfant's design also envisioned a garden-lined "grand avenue" that is now the national mall

By the start of the 20th century, L'Enfant's vision of a capital with open parks and grand national monuments had become marred by slums and randomly placed buildings, including a railroad station on the national mall

It was reworked which included the re-landscaping of the capitol grounds and the mall, constructing new federal buildings and monuments, clearing slums, and establishing a new citywide park system.

Heights of buildings act passed to restrict building height to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet (6.1 m)

Today the skyline remains low and sprawling, in keeping with Thomas Jefferson's wishes to make Washington an "American Paris" with "low and convenient" buildings on "light and airy" streets

However, Washington's height restriction has been assailed as a primary reason why the city has limited affordable housing and traffic problems as a result of urban sprawl 11

Planning principles

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Zoning

The planning began with principle of buildings and squares

He divided lines of direct communication to promote traffic between these cardinal points

The plan was divided into two axes intersecting at right angles, each with its own focus-the white house and capitalon the main axis is the capital and on the secondary axis is the white house

He made the presidents house, the centre of 7 radiating boulevards.

A type of road, a boulevard is usually a wide, multilane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery

For convenience and pleasant prospect the city was planned like a spider web.

The diagonals cut through this web.

This pattern thus provides star shaped points from which boulevards radiate.

Boulevard

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Road and Transport

The district is divided into four quadrants of unequal area: northwest (nw), northeast (ne), southeast (se), and southwest (SW).

The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the U.S. capitol building.

All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location, and house numbers are assigned based on the approximate number of blocks away from the capitol.

Scott Circle

Scott Circle is a less successful example of one of L’Enfant’s

reservations. The space is framed with large- footprint office

buildings that have little ground-floor articulation. As such, the

space is not activated with people and serves primarily as a traffic circle.

Parque De Las Ratas

Locally know as Rat Park, the intersection of Sixteenth Street, Harvard, and

Columbia Road falls outside of L’Enfant’s plan and is an example of the use of

residual space at the intersection of late Nineteenth Century residential

developments for urban purposes. Framed by large-footprint apartment

buildings and churches, the park is an amenity for the surrounding

neighborhoods.

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Road and Transport

L’Enfant conceived of the Mall as The Grand Avenue, with a width of 400 feet. Streets “leading to public buildings or markets” were to be 130 feet and “others” were to be either 110 or 90 feet in width.

L’Enfant also planned for reservations of space at key intersections and established a Neo- Classical program of siting buildings or other monuments in these spaces

Such wide streets and numerous spaces, combined with the height limit of buildings in Washington give the public space a particular character. The city is bright and open. Furthermore, the building setbacks provide space for trees and gardens which are in abundance in the city.

This character continues beyond the original area of the city, and while the grid and diagonal system of streets breaks down north of Florida Avenue, the commitment to openess and green continues.

Pennsylvania Avenue, 1857. AOC

Civic Structure L’Enfant’s Plan forWashington, 1791.highlights by FugateWashington’s civic structure was

envisioned by L’Enfant as a series of sight-reciprocal squares, fountains, and wide diagonal avenues anchored by a Grand Avenue, “400 feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, boardered with gardens, ending in a slope from the houses on each side” and “communication” from the President’s house and the Congress house, present-day Pennsylvania Avenue.

The skeleton of L’Enfants civic structure remains, though the original triangle has been extended into a cruciform with the reclamation of the Tidal Basin, and the Smithsonian Museums occupy the place of the houses along what is now now as the National Mall. Other than DuPont Circle, the importance of the Squares as part of the civic structure has never been realized, nor L’Enfant’s intention that downtown develop east of the Capitol.

Modern-Day Washington,1991. montage of Thadana and Passeneau

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DuPont circle is Washington's best example of how L'Enfant's reservations and squares could work. A vibrant park and traffic rotary combined, the circle is at the intersection of three major diagonal avenues and the centre of the DuPont circle neighbourhood, a mixOf commercial, retail, and residential uses. The space of the circle is delineated by corner buildings, streets, medians, and trees.

Massachusetts Avenue

Massachusetts avenue is one of L'Enfant's planned “grand traverse avenues”, set out at 160 feet side, with 80 feet of carriage way and 80 feet of trees and pedestrian way. Buildings in Washington are limited to 135 feet and share party walls. Along Massachusetts avenue, they frameThe space, which is further delineated by setbacks, landscaping, trees, and a parking lane.

Q Street

Q Street is representative of one of L’Enfant’s “other” streets, laid out at either 90 or 110 feet. Residential in nature, Q street’s buildings are traditionally three or four story rowhomes. Frontyard setbacks, trees, and a parking lane divide the space.

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