Washington, D.C. is a planned city. 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 who first arrived in the colonies as a military engineer with Major General Lafayette during the American Revolutionary War.[d] In 1791, President Washington commissioned L'Enfant to plan the layout of the new capital city. L'Enfant's plan was modeled in the Baroque style and incorporated avenues radiating out from rectangles, providing room for open space and landscaping.[26] His design also envisioned a garden-lined "grand avenue" approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) in length and 400 feet (120 m) wide in the area that is now the National Mall.[54]
In March 1792, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant due to his insistence on micromanaging the city's planning, which had resulted in conflicts with the three commissioners appointed by Washington to supervise the capital's construction. Andrew Ellicott, who had worked with L'Enfant surveying the city, was then commissioned to complete the plans. Though Ellicott made revisions to the original plans, including changes to some street patterns, L'Enfant is still credited with the overall design of the city.[55] The City of Washington was bounded by what is now Florida Avenue to the north, Rock Creek to the west, and the Anacostia River to the east.[26]
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.[26] In 1900, Congress formed a joint committee, headed by Senator James McMillan, charged with beautifying Washington's ceremonial core. What became known as the McMillan Plan was finalized in 1901. It 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. Architects recruited by the committee kept much of the city's original layout, and their work is thought to be largely in keeping with L'Enfant's intended design.[26]
After the construction of the twelve-story Cairo Apartment Building, Congress passed the Heights of Buildings Act, which limited building heights in the city. The Act was amended in 1910 to restrict building height to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet (6.1 m).[56] Despite popular belief, no law has ever limited buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or the Washington Monument.[57][58] 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.[56] As a result, the Washington Monument remains the District's tallest structure.[59] 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.[56] Not subject to the District's height restriction, a number of taller buildings close to downtown have been constructed across the Potomac River in Rosslyn, Virginia.[60]
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.[61] All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location. In most of the city, the streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW) and north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW).[61] Some Washington streets are particularly noteworthy, such as Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects the White House with the U.S. Capitol, and K Street, which houses the offices of many lobbying groups.[62] Washington hosts 174 foreign embassies, 59 of which are located on a section of Massachusetts Avenue informally known as Embassy Row.[63]
Source: Wikipédia
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