The Genius Design of Washington D.C.
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- čas přidán 31. 03. 2023
- Washington D.C. is widely recognized as one of the best designed Capital Cities in the world. In this video, we take a look at the history behind this design, and how it has influenced urban planning across the globe.
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#Washington #urbanplanning #infrastructure © 2023 Arkive Productions LLC - Zábava
You keep claiming that Washington's design is "car centric," even though the city was designed a century before the first cars were built. It's more accurate to say that the city's design adapted easily to cars, because of the wide streets and avenues it incorporated. Washington' has this in common with many other American cities.
Cars already existed, they just didnt had engines !
Not sure if I agree with the “easily adapting to cars”. Traffic is terrible most days, and while the avenue controlled grid does perfectly direct traffic, it is bad at controlling it. However the city is very pedestrian friendly.
@@makalism Honestly I live in Lorton VA about 30ish miles away half my time in that city was going to daisy restaurants with my family or going to family parties the other half is my family driving around and then parking and walking around.
So I think it's alright.
@@makalismexactly. As someone who works in DC. It’s horrible for driving. And all of the neighborhoods are horrible to drive in. All of the tiny 2 way streets that only have enough space for one car to actually move through that immediately connect to boulevards and make huge bottlenecks. Since once you’re in the ave.s it’s hard to turn off onto the streets because, yep. They are blocked off. It makes it easy to be a pedestrian though. Easier to just get on and off the metro and walk.
Horse and carrage actually takes up more space than a car does so 🎉🎉
Not just the street grid design, but the design of the DC Metro system, especially downtown, is incredible! The flashing lights on the platform whenever a train arrives, the hexagonal tiles, the waffle-style concrete vault Brutalism, it was built as a showcase system, and it shows. They were designed by Harry Weese, and he worked with Massachusetts-based lighting designer Bill Lam on the indirect lighting used throughout the system. He visited London, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, and many other smaller cities, hoping to take the best elements of each and combine them into the perfect system for DC.
Weese created a proposal with dozens of views for station interiors with a simple semiellipse, with a flat bottom and curved top. For cut-and-cover stations, the vault was proposed to have straight, vertical walls supporting a curved ceiling. But the CFA wanted it to be beautiful, and no exposed rock walls like Stockholm, so he changed his thought. He felt the necessities of each station would produce the variety, that "You don't try to make them different for different's sake. We think it's very appropriate for Washington. After all". To Weese, the sweeping, swooping, floating lines of Metro's plazas, stations and mezzanines are the system's best feature. Once they were chosen, he said, the long, long escalators and the indirect, somewhat dim lighting in stations fell into step as a result.
You honor us with your magnanimity. For someone as enlightened and glorious such as yourself to recognize and compliment our capital is far more than a quaint nation compared to glorious true Korea such as ours could ever hope to ask for.
Nothing is greater than Pyongyang ❤
Excellent observation, Supreme Leader.
As a DC resident I can tell you it works fairly well in the older, flatter downtown areas. Once you get farther afield and into actual geography of hills and creeks the system breaks down making it very difficult to get east to west. Further complicating the system was the disastrous attempt to put interstate highways through the city, which were only partially completed before residents revolted leaving partial highways that cut off sections of town and do not simplify auto transportation as intended.
Washington DC is one of my favourite cities in the world. I wish the McMillan plan was fully built out though because I loved it’s architecture
Too bad it feels so sterile cuz of the people that live there :/, no shade. It has the ability to compete with NY, but Baltimore is more charming.
@@andrewwalsh4366 what’s wrong with the people who live in DC?
In the world??
Have you travelled?😂
@@martijnkeisers5900been all over the world and DC is top 3
@@NahumKaleb-zk6hh Even St. Petersburg is better
I’ll disagree with the car traffic thing a little. Sure traffic can be bad, but the city has pretty good public transit and hike infrastructure, so it’s not that bad
By global standards, the city has bare minimum public transport DC needs to go much further with investment
By global standards yes, but by US standards DC is by far meeting its needs better than many others. I think there's a lot to be done for it to catch up to some other outside the US but at least they have a good start. @@LucasdeBlock
Bruh I took me 45mins to get into DC for work when the same distance to my friends house is a 15min drive
@@WaveManMike I think the push rn is to get US standards up with global standards. We gotta start comparing ourselves with other countries not just other places in the US
@@skullmaisterhave you considered that there may be more stuff around your job and therefore more people trying to get there
Washington D.C.'s 1791 L’Enfant layout is a derivative of the common 17th-18th century European formal style, which itself derives from Italian Renaissance gardens (notable for their parterres, diagonal avenues, central vistas, focal points, staircases, and fountains). These were translated through French and Dutch formal gardens of the mid-17th century, and adopted across the Continent as the basis for town and city planning.
A reflection of this influence can be seen most prominently at Versailles, and also in the 1797 map of Paris from the Napoleonic period, with some limited use of parterres and avenues breaking up the otherwise mediaeval layout. That said, it was really only with Georges-Eugène Hausmann in 1853-1870, that Paris achieved its modern appearance, and the French capital is thus a more recent iteration of the style than Washington D.C. is.
An earlier example of this style being used to plan a major city is Sir Christopher Wren's 1666 design for the City of London, following the Great Fire, which was ultimately never built. Unlike autocratic France, England was already a parliamentary democracy with property rights enshrined in the common law, preventing the relatively powerless King Charles II from razing private houses for such a grand ‘Hausmannian’ plan. Consequently, the City was rebuilt on its mediaeval street plan, with citizens staking out their plots amongst the rubble and rebuilding in situ. Nevertheless, the 1666 plan for London has many common features with the D.C. plan of a little over a century later, as well as with the 1853 Paris plan: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Christopher_Wren%27s_plan_of_London_as_reproduced_by_Gwynn._Wellcome_M0003248.jpg; see also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Charles_L%27Enfant#/media/File:Plan_of_the_city_intended_for_the_permanent_seat_of_the_government_of_the_United_States_-_projected_agreeable_to_the_direction_of_the_President_of_the_United_States..._(14726320702).jpg; and upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/1797_Jean_Map_of_Paris_and_the_Faubourgs%2C_France_-_Geographicus_-_Paris-jean-1797.jpg.
Right
Brasilia's Plano Piloto was designed in the 50s by Lucio Costa and has many references, obviously! However, it is a city recognized for being an icon of the international modern movement in the last century and is much more related to the urban and architecture ideas of that time (CIAM, or Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne). It was not designed to be like a colonial city. (+ 4:18 that is not the monumental axis, so maybe it is not so clear)
Dito isso, Washington D.C. é uma belíssima e fascinante cidade!
Great! I also noticed the video has a wrong information about the axis. Instead of monuments, that line connects both north and south residential wings.
nossa, me deu muita agonia ele mostrar o eixo residencial em vez de mostrar o monumental
Fascist, racist, the capital's place is wherever it wants.
The design of Albany's Empire State Plaza is similar in design to the National Mall as well, though officially it was modeled after Brasília, Versailles, and India's Chandigarh. Empire State Plaza was the idea of Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s, who was inspired to create the complex after Queen Juliana of the Netherlands visited Albany for a celebration of the area's Dutch history. The plaza's massive scale was designed to look menacing on purpose so it could be the dominating feature seen from the Hudson River. It was designed by Wallace Harrison, who also worked on Rockefeller Center, the United Nations Headquarters and the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.
The NY State Capitol itself is quite cool. It was built between 1867 and 1899. Three teams of architects worked on the design of the Capitol during the 32 years of its construction which were Thomas Fuller (from 1867 to 1875), Leopold Eidlitz and Henry Hobson Richardson (1875 to 1883), and Isaac G. Perry (1883 to 1899). Thomas Fuller was the same guy who designed the buildings of Parliament Hill in Ottawa! As the result of the different architects, the state capitol is in different styles throughout including Romanesque and French Renaissance. Inside are 25 murals created by William de Leftwich Dodge that depict everything from Samuel de Champlain to New York troops serving in World War I.
How are you literally everywhere?
4:40 As a Brazilian, we were always told Brasília's design was actually meant to look like an airplane, I've never heard anyone mention Washington D.C. as an inspiration for that.
Niemeyer did not need to plagiarize anyone!!
There weren't a lot of cars in 1792 when the city was designed so I'm going to hazard a guess that cars had nothing to do with the width of the streets. Also, the design of the city was modeled after Paris, which means the other cities were also based on Paris, not DC.
Actually DC was modeled after Philadelphia, which has its own Independence Mall.
@@lovedcbrand8194 and you think that wide streets and co were invented there? As well as these Malls?
L’ Enfant grew up in Paris. He took inspiration from his birth place, from Versailles. Things like boulevards, malls etc. Developed in Europe much earlier than Washington D.C. Also the architecture is inspired by the antic.
We kindly welcome you to substantiate your opinion with evidence. Please provide a timeline of how L'Enfant or the French taught Americans advanced urban planning and the US Customary measurement system, which is unique to America. Please include Jamestown, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia in your timeline. These major cities were founded and built, centuries prior to L'Enfant's birth, and served as construction models for Washington DC. We welcome your response.
Cars existed, with horses.
Its Versailles inspiration, not Paris.
@@lovedcbrand8194well first, L'enfant was french x) he was a noble and received classes from fellow noble architects. France neoclassicism is well known mostly by Versailles
nicely planned & constructed Washington DC # 👍🇵🇰
Our central square is Kim Il-sung Square, which is where military parades are held for national holidays. It is the "kilometer zero" of the DPRK from where all national road distances are measured. It is similar in form and design to the Tiananmen Square in Beijing and is used for the same purposes. It is architecturally more refined with its dramatic riverside setting. By observing, the Juche Tower appears to be located directly towards the west end of the square, although it is actually across the Taedong. The biggest building of the square is the Great People's Study House which houses 30 million books and was built as the "center for the project of intellectualizing the whole of society and a sanctuary of learning for the entire people."
Our Juche Tower rivals the Washington Monument. Our Juche Tower measures 558 feet/170 m while the Washington Monument measures 555 feet/169 m. It opened in 1982 to commemorate my grandpa's seventieth birthday. It contains 25,550 blocks, one block for each day of my grandpa's life up until that point. And it serves as the backdrop for our holiday firework shows
yes supreme leader 🫡🫡🫡
👏
Long live kimjongun❤
Traffic in DC is heavy as the suburbs around the city have grown. But getting around is not a problem because even before the current subway system was completed there was a great bus transportation system that served the whole city. In addition, the city is very easy to navigate because of the street naming system employed and the fact that the city is divided into four segments that are marked by North, South, East and West . Streets are named starting at the center of the city by alphabet for north and south directions starting with "A" ,and then with the names of individuals, then with the names of flowers. And then streets are numbered for east and west directions.
You claim the roads were designed for cars, but they weren’t. The plan and road layouts predate cars by almost more than a century.
The wide boulevards and how they exist now have more to do with the McMillan Commission and the City Beautiful Movement than cars.
The boulevards were wide before the McMillan Commission came into being. Pennsylvania Avenue, for example, has always been the width that it is. One only needs to look at old maps, engravings and photographs to see this. The growth of the city after WWII and the growth of suburbia are the factors leading to today's traffic.
Cars used horses before
The thing that truly sets DC apart from other American cities is it’s fantastic public transportation and mid-rise high-density urban design. It’s clearly very much inspired by Paris and does a very decent job functioning like it.
I just toured the east coast and D.C. was a very beautiful city!
Beautiful city.
simple but easy to understand explaination
One of my favorite things about DC, is when you are downtown, it is not really that easy to get lost. Even for someone from out of town. The streets are labelled video clearly. The eastern border of DC for example is called Eastern AVE. The streets are also divided into 4 sections depending on where you are in the city. For example, if you are North West of the capitol building, all of the streets will have "NW" after their names. The same goes for NE, SE, and SW. Lastly, the streets have very easy names to remember. They are named after states, letters and numbers. For example, Michigan AVE NE (one that I drive on almost every week), and K ST NW (I remember this because of this is where the Apple Store is 😂).
Also, things are so close together. If you are going to the Capital One Arena to watch a basketball game, after the game there's plenty of places nearby for food or further entertainment.
The city also has very low buildings relative to over major cities, enforced by law. Hard to lose your way when you can see major reference points from just about anywhere (Washington Memorial, Capitol, etc)
you realised when Washingston DC was created, there were no cars. the wide avenue ain't for cars. they are for army. in event of riots or wars, the wide avenue make it easy for the army to retain control of the city.
the Australian Capital city was also inspired by Washington DC.
Really? Canberra is pretty modern when it comes to design. Washington DC is more neoclassical and has some old European style to it.
Canberra is crap in comparison
Benjamin Benneker , an African American mathematician/astronomer, also had a large role in the design the city
4:22 Great video! But the line shown in Brasilia is not the monumental axis. Instead of monuments, that line connects both north and south residential wings.
Great video. another capital city that tried to emulate Washington DC is Canberra, the federal capital of Australia. I shall look at your other uploads, perhaps you have already covered Canberra Thank you
It’s no secret that George Washington was a Freemason, but what about Pierre L’Enfant, the architect of DC? The layout of the city’s streets and landmarks seems to suggest as much-triangles and pentagrams abound.
While L'Enfant was in New York City, he was initiated into Freemasonry. His initiation took place on April 17, 1789, at Holland Lodge No. 8, F & A M, which the Grand Lodge of New York F & A M had chartered in 1787.
L'Enfant did not design D.C. he was fired by George Washington before he could design D.C. and Benjamin Banneker was put in charge for the design of D.C. they don't tell you that part they let that narrative of lies keep floating. I was born and raised in D.C. and a graduate of Benjamin Banneker High School. Trust what i'm telling you and before you try to refute what i just told you go do your research
Took my first trip there last month and LOVED it... weather was also perfect, which just enhanced the experience!
Very interesting, the city is a artwork
Plagiarized vatican City
Nice
Based in my experience to the states, DC was the best city
Did they give credit to Benjamin Banneker for creating Washington DC?
I pray for good public transit in Washington.. one love
The Golden Ratio is not only portrayed in the street layout, but also symbolised in the distance between the capitol to the Washington Monument. Then the distiance between the monument to Lincoln Memorial is 61.8% the distance of the latter. Making it 1.618 to the whole.
this is the most information lackluster video I've ever encountered. thanks
Very nice video, but a few corrections:
1. The video implies that the National Mall Pierre L'Enfant planned extended to the Lincoln Memorial. When L'Enfant planned the city, the locaton of the Lincoln Memorial was part of the Potomac River and Mall L'Enfant envisioned only went to 17th Street, on the other side of where the Washington Monument was later built.
2. The map showing the Smithsonians include both the east and west buildings of the National Gallery of Art, however these are not part of the Smithsonian.
3. It's also odd that at the beginning of the video L'Enfant is credited for the wide avenues of Washington DC, but at the end it was stated the wide avenues were designed to accommodate cars, when cars weren't even invented a hundred years after L'Enfant's death.
Still, a nice video and the explanation of how Washington DC inspired the design of Brasilia and New Dehli is very interesting.
The traffic is because of the beltway, 95, 66, 50. Not a city design flaw. At least, in my opinion.
Even Manila and Baguio The Philippines 🇵🇭 inspired and followed the Washington DC plan by Daniel Burnham but it failed when WWII broke out its shelved the plan and result of chaotic urban centers in manila
Love DC have been there lots & lots of times great City and this time I walked behind the SC to the residential areas for the first time, so pretty.
I have been to 4 nations capitals but never my own
The core design of New Delhi has great resemblance to Washington D.C like the central vista you mentioned and the diagonal avenues radiating to different directions...
How were the avenues designed with cars in mind "which was seen as a necessity in the 20th century" if the street grid was designed and built in the early to mid 19th century?
Thank You
What is that Pentagram doing at 3:19 seconds?
The genius is the discount they got on the labor in building the city
At 4:20 you highlighted the Highway axis, a North-South, six-lane roadway that cuts through Brasília's wings. The Monumental axis is the East-West main thoroughfare that ends at the Three Powers Plaza, that hosts all power branches main buildings.
good video
Thanks
The problem with dc is each rode can lead you to the other side of the city. Meaning a vast amount of differing stop lights and intersections. Rush hour changes a 10 minute drive up the block to 45 minutes.
Adorable planned cuties
If you are designing a capital city out of scratch, then it would turn out ingenious.
The light rail system was great.
They dug it up to make bus lanes.
4:31 that is actually footage of Sao Paulo city, not Brasilia.
Hello this video inspired me to a school project on this topic and I was wondering where you got your information from?
Too bad there’s zero mention of Pierre L’Enfant taking inspiration from Le Notre and his work on not only Versailles gardens but the entire city of Versailles which is the first real urban planning and new city ever designed. The layout is genius. :/ DC looks stunning, and that’s because L’Enfant knew where to look for inspiration.
L'Enfant? He doesn't need to be mentioned. You better research Benjamin Banneker when you mention the design of D.C. I'm born and raised in D.C. and graduated from Benjamin Banneker High School in D.C. History lies and the liars who write history never tell the whole story or truth. I'm pretty sure your old enough to know that everything they tell you about history is not always the truth
What type of silver screws would we need to hold it together?
Now talk about the masonic symbols within the DC grid layout
They plagiarized their enemy, Vatican City to claim themselves as the secular challenging party!!!
why is the Washington Monument not aligned in a 90 degree angle to the White House?
Just one correction, you mentioned the Monumental Axis in Brasília, but highlighted the Great Axis in the video. The Monumental runs East-West and goes from the old railway station to the Three Powers Square, being surrounded by most of the important government buildings, while the Great Axis runs North-South, in a bend resembling the wings of an airplane, and is the main road connecting the two neighbourhoods that make up the downtown, South Wing and North Wing. That said, Brasilia is indeed very dependant on highways, and I only started noticing how much better is a walkable city when I started traveling to other cities, especially Buenos Aires.
Thanks for that!
Also… the image shown while discussing the car dependency of Brasilia is of São Paulo, not Brasilia
Understandting
Apologies if this was already mentioned, but there weren't any cars when it was designed. It was designed for horse-and-carriages.
Even Egypt uses Washington's design to build its NAC.
You know this channel always seems to suggest that cities that don't have skyscrapers are better designed than ones with them.
Abraham Lincoln staut 😢😢😢old memoiry childhood 😢😢Behind garden of White house 😢
As a Brazilian, just mentioned there is nothing to do with DC.
The Brazilian capital has two wings and a monumental axle.
Even the inspiration citation in the video, regardless DC is one of the most memorable cities in the world, and I had the opportunity to visit a few years ago. But there is no inspiration from Pierre L'Enfant or the city that he developed., even if there were some related would be a great joy, but according to the source, one of the architects who assisted Oscar Niemeyer who designed Brasilia, Lucio Costa, there is no source related that linked the construction of the Brazilian capitol, constructed on Centure 20th with any inspiration with D.C, but with the French trends that they had deep knowledged since both of then had contact with some trends designed by the French Le Courbusier.
It’s great if you don’t mind using the Metrorail, which I don’t.
Car traffic in DC is a nightmare.
i cannot blame myself enough for skipping washington dc from my travelling around the united states =(( and now it is hella expensive to revisit for travel =((
You forgot to mention the part where L’Enfant was fired by G.W. and Benjamin Banneker successfully re-designed the city.
Thank you. That would have been too much like right.
That Part
CENTRAL VISTA PROJECT OF NEW DELHI is going to replicate CENTRAL MALL OF WASHINGTON DC....
Waiting to finish project......
Include Rizal Park in Manila which was designed during US colonial rule in the Philippines.
Washington D.C. is formed as it is today by the city of Karlsruhe in Germany, which served as a model when Thomas Jefferson visited and was so inspired that he wanted the same cityscape in the USA....
I wonder sometimes what if Philly stayed as our capital? Or what if after everything was built & the capital came back to Philly, what both layouts would be?
I've been living in D.C for a while and air pollution has never been a problem, was it an issue back then?
I think the 18th century designer would find it interesting you think he designed the city for something that no one even thought off at the time… the automobile.
I like cities that accomodate cars.
Please add here Astana, it was also clearly inspired by DC. Even being named after the first president for a little while.
3:20 Am I the only one who noticed that President´s park/the Ellipse is not Nort but South from the White House?
You are correct. President's park includes the White House grounds and the Ellipse to the South of the White house. Lafayette Square lies to the North of the White House and was previously part of President's park. President Jefferson had Pennsylvania Ave NW cut through President's park creating Lafayette Square.
How can a city designed and built in the 18th and 19th century be "car-centric"?
Nobody's mentioning the masonic design used as a the original layout?
Right. Not a single person talking about the upside pentagram in the road layout and the Egyptian monuments
Tgat is right. They could not helped but plagiarized their enemy: Vatican City! Christianity, that is!!!
I wish there was more of a symmetric design with the general grid layout. Kinda looks messy from above
Why there aren't a lot of skyscrapers, high buildings in Washington like there are in New York??
Can you do the germania capital
@3:36 what’s that at the White House
It’s quite odd…yes, what IS that???
Mass Avenue is the main E/W corridor it is 1.5 lanes wide, yeah brilliant ....................
I'm not so sure that Brasilia was heavily inspired on Washington DC! As a Brazilian I have never heard of so. Anyway, when you show the city, that curved course is not the most important avenue of the city, it should be the "monumental axis" where the most important buildings of Brasília are located. 🇧🇷🙌🏻
The Washington monument is not 550 feet. It's 555' and 5 1/8 " tall and 55' wide at the base
Hahahahahahahaha
Car Centric? Have you never been to Los Angeles, Miami, or any if the cities in between them?
It's called the Elipse. No one from DC calls it "President's Park"
i'm a D.C. native and you are absolutely correct we do not call it that. its the Elipse and will always be
Benjamin Banneker
I came back a year later and watched this video
I think ,the United States government should build a new capital city in the Lebanon,Kansas
BRAZIL MENTIONED!!! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
I wish all american cities could be as well-designed as our capital
Washington needed more classical architecture to be as impressive as Paris or London.
What the hell is that on the white house lawn???? 3:33
1. Washington traffic is bad for a reason.
It is important and nice to kive in good design city or county more there is much more important thinks like what type of people are in government and wants to control or help people is it what George Washington and many mice people built and keep in right way or companies use women as gost. Riders or now abuse of power?
7:20 I'm not sure that it does function as a place of government though
Out of every city i been too dc has the worst traffic
Like center St. Petersburg
It's frikin nightmare dude. NYC is way better planned out. Nice presentation.
literally has an upside down pentagram
You sound like lightning mcqueen
Mentioned multiple times that DC was/is built to serve as a seat of government and a place for visitors but you completely disregard its purpose as a city where actual Americans live. Where more Americans live than whole states like Wyoming and Alaska.