DOI issue:
The International Studio (January, 1908)
DOI article:Mechlin, Leila: The Washington plan and the art of city-building
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28253#0467
The Washington Plan
Washington one of the beauty spots of the world,
as it will undoubtedly become when the scheme is
carried out.” Unhappily this scheme has never
been authorized or sanctioned by Congress—partly
through a false conception of economy and partly
on account of personal prejudice, and though
$25,000,000 worth of work has been done in ac-
cordance therewith, the people of the United States
have no assurance that it will actually be carried
out. This is perhaps neither here nor there, except
so far as it may indicate our national appreciation
or disregard of things essentially artistic. The art
of the street—the art of the city—is less tangible
than that of the workshop or studio, but it is no
less vital.
Let us see what kind of art this Park Commision
employed, how it used its tools and its material.
When Mr. Burnham, Mr. McKim, Mr. Olmsted
and Mr. Saint-Gaudens met together in Washing-
ton to take up the work which had been placed in
their hands, they found in the heart of the city a
large public reservation known as the Mall, in
which were located the National Museum, the
Smithsonian, the Department of Agriculture and
the Fish Commission buildings, and which at that
time was crossed by the tracks of the Pennsylvania
Railroad. It was regularly planted with trees,
intersected by winding paths, and given inde-
pendent sectional treatment. At one end was the
Capitol and at the other the Washington Monu-
ment, but in no way were the park and its surround-
ings brought into definite relation. This the com-
mission took as a starting point—as the key to the
solution of the problem. In the plan which was laid
before Congress in 1902 we see the Mall treated as
a unit which serves to draw together into a single
composition the several parts of the city. An
avenue of undulating green, a mile and a half long
and three hundred feet wide, walled on either side
by four rows of elms, stretches from the Monument
to the Capitol. Back of this stand the public
buildings and down its length are walks and drives.
Because the land is level and the grade low, this
treatment is peculiarly suitable, but aside from this
its simplicity and dignity cannot fail to commend it.
At the east end of the Mall it was proposed to
clear the space where the Botanic Garden now
stands, and, restoring the true north and south
lines of the Capitol grounds, to treat it in accord-
ance with L’Enfant’s suggestion, as a broad
thoroughfare so enriched with parterres of green
as to form an organic connection between the
Capitol and the Mall. The commanding location
of this area led the commission to recommend
that the Grant Memorial, for which Congress had at
that time appropriated $250,000, be made the chief
decoration of the square, and that associated with
the monument to Grant should be the statues of
his two great lieutenants, Sherman and Sheridan,
standing independently, yet so as to form a single
composition. In part an effort has been made to
carry out this recommendation, but not, it must be
admitted, altogether successfully. The statues of
Sheridan and Sherman have both been given other
VIEW OF MALL
PAKK COMMISSION PLAN
CXIII
Washington one of the beauty spots of the world,
as it will undoubtedly become when the scheme is
carried out.” Unhappily this scheme has never
been authorized or sanctioned by Congress—partly
through a false conception of economy and partly
on account of personal prejudice, and though
$25,000,000 worth of work has been done in ac-
cordance therewith, the people of the United States
have no assurance that it will actually be carried
out. This is perhaps neither here nor there, except
so far as it may indicate our national appreciation
or disregard of things essentially artistic. The art
of the street—the art of the city—is less tangible
than that of the workshop or studio, but it is no
less vital.
Let us see what kind of art this Park Commision
employed, how it used its tools and its material.
When Mr. Burnham, Mr. McKim, Mr. Olmsted
and Mr. Saint-Gaudens met together in Washing-
ton to take up the work which had been placed in
their hands, they found in the heart of the city a
large public reservation known as the Mall, in
which were located the National Museum, the
Smithsonian, the Department of Agriculture and
the Fish Commission buildings, and which at that
time was crossed by the tracks of the Pennsylvania
Railroad. It was regularly planted with trees,
intersected by winding paths, and given inde-
pendent sectional treatment. At one end was the
Capitol and at the other the Washington Monu-
ment, but in no way were the park and its surround-
ings brought into definite relation. This the com-
mission took as a starting point—as the key to the
solution of the problem. In the plan which was laid
before Congress in 1902 we see the Mall treated as
a unit which serves to draw together into a single
composition the several parts of the city. An
avenue of undulating green, a mile and a half long
and three hundred feet wide, walled on either side
by four rows of elms, stretches from the Monument
to the Capitol. Back of this stand the public
buildings and down its length are walks and drives.
Because the land is level and the grade low, this
treatment is peculiarly suitable, but aside from this
its simplicity and dignity cannot fail to commend it.
At the east end of the Mall it was proposed to
clear the space where the Botanic Garden now
stands, and, restoring the true north and south
lines of the Capitol grounds, to treat it in accord-
ance with L’Enfant’s suggestion, as a broad
thoroughfare so enriched with parterres of green
as to form an organic connection between the
Capitol and the Mall. The commanding location
of this area led the commission to recommend
that the Grant Memorial, for which Congress had at
that time appropriated $250,000, be made the chief
decoration of the square, and that associated with
the monument to Grant should be the statues of
his two great lieutenants, Sherman and Sheridan,
standing independently, yet so as to form a single
composition. In part an effort has been made to
carry out this recommendation, but not, it must be
admitted, altogether successfully. The statues of
Sheridan and Sherman have both been given other
VIEW OF MALL
PAKK COMMISSION PLAN
CXIII