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DESIGNING THE NATION'S CAPITAL: The 1901 Plan for Washington, D.C.
INTRODUCTION
By Sue Kohler Historian
Commission of Fine Arts
ANYONE who joins the staff of the Commission of Fine
Arts is immediately made aware of the close connection that still exists
between the Commission and its predecessor, the Senate Park Commission,
popularly known as the McMillan Commission, of 1901. Surrounded by such
reminders as the one hundred mounted 33 by 43-inch photographs of
European scenes, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.'s scrapbook of snapshots
taken during the commission's European trip, and the remaining large
watercolor renderings used in the 1902 exhibition at the Corcoran
Gallery of Art, it is hard not to feel the kinship, and to ponder what
was in the minds of these four men as they set out, in the heady
atmosphere of the City Beautiful movement, to draft a plan that would
make Washington one of the most beautiful capitals in the world.
Fortunately there are letters, primarily in the
manuscript collections of the Library of Congress, the Art Institute of
Chicago, and the New-York Historical Society, as well as the books on
Burnham and McKim by Charles Moore, Senator McMillan's aide who
accompanied three of the commission members on their trip to Europe.
Reading from these sources makes one realize what a tremendous amount of
work was packed into ten months' timeand this included planning
and producing the exhibition at the Corcoran in January 1902, a major
effort in itself. The six-week European trip, which some referred to as
a "junket", was extremely productive; the days at sea with no
interruptions, and the first-hand experience of the best Europe had to
offer in examples of urban planning and landscaping were invaluable.
It should be understood that the Park Commission's
plan did not take shape "out of the blue" in 1901. For the past two
decades, in concert with the City Beautiful movement, there had been
articles in the press pointing out the capital's shortcomings in regard
to public architecture and public spaces, as well as demands for some
kind of entity to exercise control over the quality of these civic
improvements once funds were appropriated for them. The members of the
Park Commission were not unaware of this criticism, and it undoubtedly
shaped their thinking. More influential was the series of talks on the
subject given at the American Institute of Architects convention of
1900, which took place in Washington, and during which Olmsted himself
spoke on landscape, particularly in regard to the Mall.
The plan has been criticized because it seems to
ignore the city beyond the monumental core, but this was the case only
because of time limitations. As it was, the commission's report devoted
100 pages to the "Outlying Parks and Their Connections" versus 71 pages
to the Mall area and the grouping of public buildings in the monumental
core. It was, after all, charged with developing a park system for the
entire District of Columbia. Especially interesting, in light of the
renewed interest today, was the extensive discussion of the Anacostia
River, the deplorable condition of the flats, and the advisability of
creating a water park to rehabilitate that part of the city. Providing
adequate public bathing places and playgrounds for children also
occupied the commission members; a reading of the report makes it clear
that they were not solely concerned with developing a grand Beaux-Arts
plan for the Mall.
After the Corcoran exhibition and the publication of
the report, the Park Commission was officially disbanded, but its
hardest work actually lay ahead. Almost immediately, and all too
frequently, they were called in to advise on the implementation of some
aspect of their plan. When specific buildings were proposed and designed
for the Mall, the members fought doggedly to assure that the design
would be Roman and not contemporary French, and of utmost importance,
that the width of the Mall as they had specified it would be maintained,
and that the buildings would be placed on the grade established to
maintain the correct relationship to the Washington Monument. This
continued until the Commission of Fine Arts was finally established in
1910 to take over these duties.
Considering its close association with the
complexities of the plan, the Commission of Fine Arts decided to
celebrate the Park Commission's 100th anniversary by publishing a series
of essays. They have been written by experts in their fields, and we
hope they will give the reader a deeper, more three-dimensionalif
one can use that wordunderstanding of what the four members of the
commission were planning for the nation's capital. It is fitting that,
one hundred years afterward, we look back and see what they
accomplished, what they failed to do, and determine what our task is for
the next one hundred years.
These are the essays included in this
publication:
The Senate Park Commission Plan for
Washington: A New Vision for the Capital and Nation, by Jon
Peterson, is an overview of the commission and its work, as well as the
political setting in which it took place. Dr. Peterson is presently
professor of history emeritus at Queens College of the City University
of New York. His book, The Birth of City Planning in the
United States, 1840-1917, was published in 2003 by the Johns
Hopkins University Press, and received the Society of Architectural
Historians' Spiro Kostoff Award in 2005.
The American Institute of Architects Convention
of 1900: Its Influence on the Senate Park Commission
Plan, by Tony P. Wrenn, documents the events leading up to the
establishment of the Senate Park Commission under the leadership of
Senator James McMillan of Michigan. Mr. Wrenn is an honorary member of
the AIA and was for many years the archivist of that organization.
"A City Designed as a Work of Art": The Emergence
of the Senate Park Commission's Monumental Core, by Pamela
Scott, investigates preliminary site and design plans made between the
beginning of March and the end of 1901, which have not previously been
considered in studies of the Park Commission Plan. Ms. Scott is an
independent architectural historian who teaches the history of
Washington architecture for Cornell University in Washington, D.C. and
has written and lectured extensively on this subject.
Beyond the Mall: The Senate Park
Commission's Plans for Washington's Park System, by
Timothy Davis, discusses proposals for Washington's parks, a largely
untold aspect of the plan. Dr. Davis, a historian with the National Park
Service's Park Historic Structures and Cultural Landscapes Division,
has a special interest in American landscape history, with an emphasis
on parkways and roads, and is a recognized authority in this field.
Agriculture, Architects, and the Mall, 1901-1905:
The Plan Is Tested, by Dana Dalrymple, unravels the complicated
history of the current Department of Agriculture building on the Mall, a
pivotal case in the implementation of the Park Commission Plan. Dr.
Dalrymple is a USDA agricultural economist by profession and an
architectural historian by avocation; he has been researching the
history of the Mall and the Agriculture building for over twenty-five
years.
The Commission of Fine Arts: Implementing
the Senate Park Commission's Vision, by Sue Kohler, documents the
events leading to the establishment by Congress in 1910 of the
Commission of Fine Arts, and the Commission's work during its early
years to implement the Park Commission Plan. Ms. Kohler, the historian
of the Commission of Fine Arts for many years, is the author of
The Commission of Fine Arts: A Brief History, and the
co-author of several other books on Washington architecture.
"Beloved Ancien": William T. Partridge's
Recollection of the Senate Park Commission and the Subsequent
Mall Development, by Kurt G.E. Helfrich, is an annotation of selected
portions of a little-known manuscript by Partridge recalling his work
for the Park Commission, and later on as an architectural consultant to
the National Capital Park and Planning Commission on the Mall
development. Dr. Helfrich is the curator of the architectural drawings
collection of the University Art Museum, University of California, Santa
Barbara.
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Last Modified: March 20, 2009
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