How Washington D.C. Was Built and Evolved Over Time

Pierre L'Enfant's 1791 plan laid broad diagonal avenues across a conventional grid, meeting at circles and squares, with the Capitol on high ground and a long open axis running west. It is a baroque European plan applied to an empty American site.

The federal buildings are deliberately neoclassical — a republic claiming descent from Rome and Athens — in marble, granite and sandstone. The Capitol dome, cast iron painted to look like stone, was completed during the Civil War, a decision taken for its symbolism.

The Height of Buildings Act of 1910 ties building height to the width of the street it faces. The common belief that nothing may exceed the Capitol is a myth, but the effect is the same: a low, wide city.

The McMillan Plan of 1902 cleared the Mall of its Victorian clutter and a railway station, and produced the open ground that exists now.