{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/330104"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/330104","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Washington, D.C. and the Idea of America: A reappraisal of the 1791 plan for the Nation’s Capital","abstract":"Washington, D.C. was the first American planned city of its size and one of the first attempts at a spatial organisation of the nation’s political objectives. This thesis argues that Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for the city is a unique example of eighteenth-century speculative development, that assimilated dominant European garden and urban planning traditions, reflected a critical transition in attitudes towards nature and landscape, and produced an unprecedented symbolic framework for the balance of republican values and federal objectives. I use a review of the development of the plan and an analysis of its distribution of space to locate the city within a wider context of continental expansion and the consolidation of national union. In the first part of this thesis I trace three aspects of this context: first, the plan’s relationship to contemporary patterns of land management, survey and territorial settlement; second, the eighteenth-century significance of nature within political thought and the manifestation of these ideas in the garden and landscape precedents available to the architect and his contemporaries; and third, the shift from representations of monarchy to celebrations of presidential authority, evident in L’Enfant’s work. In the second part I conduct a drawn dissection of the structure of the 1791 plan and provide a new interpretation of the primary orientation of the city, the distribution of ceremonial spaces, and the projected character of the commercial and residential urban fabric. Through a conceptual-historical reconstruction of the relationship between the plan for the capital, national expansion and American democracy, my project seeks to recover the significance of Washington, D.C. as a seminal reflection of the collision of a European urban and landscape tradition with the formation of an American political ideology.","abstract_html":"Washington, D.C. was the first American planned city of its size and one of the first attempts at a spatial organisation of the nation’s political objectives. This thesis argues that Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for the city is a unique example of eighteenth-century speculative development, that assimilated dominant European garden and urban planning traditions, reflected a critical transition in attitudes towards nature and landscape, and produced an unprecedented symbolic framework for the balance of republican values and federal objectives. I use a review of the development of the plan and an analysis of its distribution of space to locate the city within a wider context of continental expansion and the consolidation of national union. In the first part of this thesis I trace three aspects of this context: first, the plan’s relationship to contemporary patterns of land management, survey and territorial settlement; second, the eighteenth-century significance of nature within political thought and the manifestation of these ideas in the garden and landscape precedents available to the architect and his contemporaries; and third, the shift from representations of monarchy to celebrations of presidential authority, evident in L’Enfant’s work. In the second part I conduct a drawn dissection of the structure of the 1791 plan and provide a new interpretation of the primary orientation of the city, the distribution of ceremonial spaces, and the projected character of the commercial and residential urban fabric. Through a conceptual-historical reconstruction of the relationship between the plan for the capital, national expansion and American democracy, my project seeks to recover the significance of Washington, D.C. as a seminal reflection of the collision of a European urban and landscape tradition with the formation of an American political ideology.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Schroder, Ingrid"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Steemers, Koen"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2021,"date_issued":"2021-11-27","date_published":"2021-11-27","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:17Z","subjects":["American urbanism","18th Century cities","architecture","Pierre L'Enfant"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/a85fd508-1bc2-44ef-bcfa-50b9c16a698c/download","https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["000000018135158X"],"render_values":[{"text":"0000-0001-8135-158X","href":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8135-158X","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.77548","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Steemers, Koen"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Schroder, Ingrid"]},{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["000000018135158X"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2021-11-27"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/330104"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["American urbanism","18th Century cities","architecture","Pierre L'Enfant"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/a85fd508-1bc2-44ef-bcfa-50b9c16a698c/download","https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["10.17863/CAM.77548"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/d6ff02d0-fd2a-443e-a1ca-09d7001a67b3/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Washington, D.C. was the first American planned city of its size and one of the first attempts at a spatial organisation of the nation’s political objectives. 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In the first part of this thesis I trace three aspects of this context: first, the plan’s relationship to contemporary patterns of land management, survey and territorial settlement; second, the eighteenth-century significance of nature within political thought and the manifestation of these ideas in the garden and landscape precedents available to the architect and his contemporaries; and third, the shift from representations of monarchy to celebrations of presidential authority, evident in L’Enfant’s work. In the second part I conduct a drawn dissection of the structure of the 1791 plan and provide a new interpretation of the primary orientation of the city, the distribution of ceremonial spaces, and the projected character of the commercial and residential urban fabric. Through a conceptual-historical reconstruction of the relationship between the plan for the capital, national expansion and American democracy, my project seeks to recover the significance of Washington, D.C. as a seminal reflection of the collision of a European urban and landscape tradition with the formation of an American political ideology."]},{"key":"dc:format.checksum.md5","label":"Dc Format Checksum Md5","values":["3fccd52277857e52c5624548d892bbb6","353adac0d1ebdfd65ab16480263c3c87"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Washington, D.C. and the Idea of America: A reappraisal of the 1791 plan for the Nation’s Capital"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Steemers, Koen"],"dc:creator":["Schroder, Ingrid"],"dc:creator.authoridentifier":["000000018135158X"],"dc:date.issued":["2021-11-27"],"dc:description.abstract":["Washington, D.C. was the first American planned city of its size and one of the first attempts at a spatial organisation of the nation’s political objectives. 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