Creating the "City Beautiful"

At the beginning of its second century, the nation’s capital changed dramatically as the United States Senate in 1902 adopted recommendations from the Senate Park Commission, popularly known as the McMillan Commission, and by 1910 the federally appointed Commission of Fine Arts was directing rehabilitation of the National Mall. Under its supervision, construction began on several new buildings near the Capitol, including monuments to Lincoln and Jefferson, and on a series of new parks. Both commissions were guided by two principles: Pierre L’Enfant’s 1792 plan for the city, which had never been fully realized and had nearly been lost during the 19th century, and the creation and maintenance of grand public spaces promoted by the City Beautiful movement of the 1890s and exemplified by Beaux Arts designs of the French and Italian Renaissance revivals. Meridian Hill Park embodied both principles as a monumental entrance to Washington, and its 1994 National Historic Landmark nomination called its Renaissance villa landscape in the midst of an American city serving as a public park without true parallel.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States