2. LOCATION
Located in the mid Atlantic region of the
U.S east coast
Country : United States of America
Approved on : July 16, 1970
Named after : George Washington
The district is bordered by Montogomery
County, Maryland, to the northwest
Prince Georgy ’ County, Maryland to the
east
Arlington and Alexandria Virginia to the
south and west
3. INTRODUCTION
Land Area : 68.3
square miles
Population:702,455
The district is under
exclusive juridisction
under US and DC is
not a state it is a
federal district
created specially to
the seat of govt
Washington is home to
many
national monuments,an
d museums s, primarily
situated on or around
the National Hall
4. HISTORIC BACKGROUND
17th Century
Various tribes of the
Algonquians speaking
Piscataway people
inhabited lands around
the Potomac river
January 23,1788
James Madson
argued that the new
federal govt need an
authority for new
capital for safety and
its own maintenance
July 16,1790
Foundation of
the District
Capital
Aug 24-25,1814
The civil war and
the raid known as
the burning of
washington
The organic act of 1871
individual charecters of
Washington and
Georgetown created a new
territorial govt to the whole
district of the Columbia
5. HISTORIC BACKGROUND
Congress enacted the
cities of Columbia under
Home Rule Act 1973
which approved the
creation of national capital
on the potomac river
April 4 1968
The assassination of
evil rights leader
Dr.Martin Luther
King broke riots in
the city
Early 1900 Washington
was the first city in
nation undergo urban
renewal projects as a
part of City Beautiful
Movement
6. ADMINISTRATION
Local Government
DC residents pay taxes to the
federal government
They do not have a voting
representative in Congress
DC is divided in to 8 wards
geographically that are used to
elect members of the DC City
Council
Government Officials;
Mayor, DC Council,
Congressional Delegation, State
board of advisory
7. ARCHITECTURAL CHARECTER
Washington is made up of five type of building blocks, the party wall office building,
the row home, the dethatched bungalow, the neo classical institution and the urban
villa.The detached was a typical trend in the sub urban development in the country as
residential neighbourhood attempts to maintain a patoral ideal while remaining in
close proximity to the urban economy.
The party wall office
building maximizes
the real estate in
downtown
Washington. Building
heights are limited to
135 feet(40.5m). Office
buildings typically
have retail on the first
floor in addition to the
lobbies.
8. The detached house
was introduced in
outskirts of the
district in the early
twentieth century.
Ordinary laid out in
traditional blocks with
similar setbacks,the
block gave way to the
suburban serpentine
street system typical
of the mid and late
twentieth century.The
building type does not
occur within the
sections of city
planned by L’Enfant
The party wall row
home was the
traditional housing
stock of Washington
throughout the
eighteenth and
nineteenth
centuries.Though
heights varied,many
had basement
apartments with
separate entry
9. The institutional
building is the
significant part of the
Washington landscape
. Typically
governmental or
museums , they are set
apart as neo-classical
objects in an often
idealized landscape.
During Urban Renewal
in the Southwest
quadrant, modern
buildings were sited
much the same way
without the
landscaping
Demand for the safety
space in the capital
drove the
development of urban
villas which were
detached with a
processional entrance,
The party wall row
home was the
traditional housing
stock of Washington
throughout the
eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
Though heights
varied , many had
basement apartments
with separate entry.
10. PLANNING HISTORY
Washington DC is a planned city
The L’ENFANT and ELLICOT PLANS
In 1791 at the request of George
Washington , Pierre Charles L’Enfant
,a French born architect and city
planner envisioned a garden-lined
“grand avenue” 1.6km in length and
120m wide, in the area of national
mall.
JEFFERSONS PLAN
Jefferson’s plan was the first of a
long discourse over what the
identity of the capital would be
urban or pastoral. The plan
would have been a series of 600
x 600ft blocks, anchored on
either and government buildings
12. STREET LAYOUT
Pierre Charles L’Enfant
By the early 1900s, L’Enfant vision of
a grand capital had become marred by
slums randomly placed buildings a
railroad station on the National Mall.
McMillan Plan
Millans plan was finalized in 1901 re-
landscaping the capitol grounds and the
National Mall, clearing slums establishing a
new city wide park system. By law
Washington’s skyline is low and sprawling.
The heights of the building act of 1910
amended the restrictions building less than
the width of adjacent street , plus 1.6m
13. CITY LAYOUT
• Washington was model in the Baroque style incorporated avenues radiating out from
rectangle providing room for open space and landscaping
• Four quadrants
• Street scapes- The intersection of two or three diagonal avenues are puntuated with
landscaped circles and squares , while their intersections with grid streets create
triangular and trapezoidal lots
14. CITY LAYOUT
• The planning began with
principle of buildings and
squares
• Divided the lines of direct
communication to promote
traffic between these cardinal
points
• The plan was divided in to two
axes intersecting at right
angles, each with its own
focus-the white house and the
capital , on the main axis is
the capital and the secondary
axis is the white house
• Made the presidents house,
the centre of seven radiating
boulevards
15. PECULIAR CHARECTER
Q street laid out at either 90 or
110 feet are traditionally three or
four story row houses .
Du point circle :
• A vibrant park and traffic
rotary combined, the circle is
at intersection of three major
avenues
• Massachusetts avenue is one
of the L’Enfant planned grand
transverse avenue, set out at
160 feet side, with 80 feet of
carriage way and 80 feet of
trees and pedestrian way
16. CITY CONDITIONS
• Washington DC is known for its easily imaged and well
connected street grid
• This grid disintegrates along the city’s southern borders where it
collides with Anascostia and Potomac rivers
• This separation may have worked historically for an isolated
capital city but its doesn’t work in the hypernetwork world of
today, where DC act as a hub of vital metropolitian region
• The parts of Rock Creek Park are difficult to reach with public
transit.
