Pierre-Charles L’Enfant - Revision history

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 '''Pierre-Charles L’Enfant''' (August 2, 1754&ndash;June 14, 1825) was a French architect, civil engineer, and urban designer best known for his plan of 1791 of the nation's capital city of Washington.
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 ==Other Resources==
 [http://tclf.org/pioneer/pierre-lenfant?destination=search-results The Cultural Landscape Foundation]

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 ==History==
 [[File:2095.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, ''Plan of the City intended for the Permanent Seat of the Government of t[he] United States'', 1791.]]
-From 1771 to 1776, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where his father—a painter specializing in landscapes and military subjects—was an instructor. Thereafter, L'Enfant enlisted as a volunteer in the American Continental Army, serving primarily in the capacity of draftsman and surveyor. He provided drawings for the American army’s first training manual and, while stationed at Valley Forge, drew a portrait of General [[George Washington]], who became an influential supporter of L’Enfant’s post-military career.<ref>Philander D. Chase, ed., ''The Papers of George Washington'', Revolutionary War Series, 90 vols. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 17:129, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DN4FXZTM, view on Zotero]; Scott W. Berg, ''Grand Avenues : The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC'' (New York : Pantheon Books, 2007), 19&ndash;47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; H. Paul Caemmerer, ''Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Planner of the City Beautiful, The City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: National Republic Publishing Company, 1950), 1&ndash;67, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant had attained the rank of Captain of Engineers by the time of the British surrender in 1781. The following year, at the request of the French ambassador, [[George Washington|Washington]] sent L’Enfant to Philadelphia (then the U.S. capital) to design a colonnaded [[pavilion]] for dancing and other entertainments in honor of the birth of an heir to Louis XVI. According to Benjamin Rush, the surrounding grounds were “cut into beautiful [[walk]]s and divided with cedar and pine branches into artificial [[grove]]s.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 87&ndash;88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; see also Sally Webster, “Pierre-Charles L’Enfant and the Iconography of Independence,” ''Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide'' 7 (2008), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WUICCGFC view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant established a successful civil engineering practice in New York City, which became the seat of the federal government in 1785. He was celebrated for his efficient and elegant renovation of the New York's second City Hall, later renamed Federal Hall, where the first United States Congress met and [[George Washington|Washington]] was inaugurated as president in 1789.<ref>Berg 2007, 64&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 108&ndash;18, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref>
+From 1771 to 1776, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where his father—a painter specializing in landscapes and military subjects—was an instructor. Thereafter, L'Enfant enlisted as a volunteer in the American Continental Army, serving primarily in the capacity of draftsman and surveyor. He provided drawings for the American army’s first training manual and, while stationed at Valley Forge, drew a portrait of General George Washington, who became an influential supporter of L’Enfant’s post-military career.<ref>Philander D. Chase, ed., ''The Papers of George Washington'', Revolutionary War Series, 90 vols. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 17:129, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DN4FXZTM, view on Zotero]; Scott W. Berg, ''Grand Avenues : The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC'' (New York : Pantheon Books, 2007), 19&ndash;47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; H. Paul Caemmerer, ''Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Planner of the City Beautiful, The City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: National Republic Publishing Company, 1950), 1&ndash;67, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant had attained the rank of Captain of Engineers by the time of the British surrender in 1781. The following year, at the request of the French ambassador, Washington sent L’Enfant to Philadelphia (then the U.S. capital) to design a colonnaded [[pavilion]] for dancing and other entertainments in honor of the birth of an heir to Louis XVI. According to Benjamin Rush, the surrounding grounds were “cut into beautiful [[walk]]s and divided with cedar and pine branches into artificial [[grove]]s.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 87&ndash;88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; see also Sally Webster, “Pierre-Charles L’Enfant and the Iconography of Independence,” ''Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide'' 7 (2008), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WUICCGFC view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant established a successful civil engineering practice in New York City, which became the seat of the federal government in 1785. He was celebrated for his efficient and elegant renovation of the New York's second City Hall, later renamed Federal Hall, where the first United States Congress met and Washington was inaugurated as president in 1789.<ref>Berg 2007, 64&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 108&ndash;18, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref>
-In July 1790, Congress authorized the building of a new capital city on the Potomac River. L’Enfant had already written to [[George Washington|Washington]] the previous year asking to design “the Foundation of a city which is to become the Capital of this vast Empire.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 127, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Duly appointed to survey and map the Federal territory, L’Enfant developed a visionary plan for a great metropolis. Drawing on his experience as a military engineer and borrowing ideas from the maps of various European cities provided to him by [[Thomas Jefferson]], he reinterpreted Old World conventions according to American ideals.<ref>Berg 2007, 105&ndash;13, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Kirk Savage, ''Monument Wars: Washington, DC, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 29&ndash;30, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WNN7I268 view on Zotero]; Pamela Scott, “‘This Vast Empire’: The Iconography of the Mall, 1791&ndash;1848,” in ''The Mall in Washington'', ed. Richard Longstreth, Studies in the History of Art, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers, XIV (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991), 37&ndash;45, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/N4WS8QU7 view on Zotero]; Therese O’Malley, “Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: The National Mall, Washington, DC 1791&ndash;1852" (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1989), 26&ndash;48, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero]. J. L. Sibley Jennings Jr., “Artistry as Design: L’Enfant’s Extraordinary City,” ''Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress'' 36 (1979): 231&ndash;37, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TC3E674S view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 147, 149, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Exploiting the existing topography, L’Enfant reserved the most commanding positions for “Grand Edifices” (principally, the “Congress House” and “President’s House”) and “Grand [[Square]]s.” He connected these focal points by means of thirteen diagonally radiating [[avenue]]s representative of the original colonies. The long [[vista]]s were to be punctuated by a series of landscaped circles and [[square]]s ornamented with [[fountain]]s, [[column]]s, [[obelisk]]s, and other monuments in memory of those who had contributed to the nation’s liberty and independence. Each of the states of the union was to take responsibility for “improving” one of the [[square]]s as an expression of its distinct identity. An underlying network of intersecting streets, laid out in an orthogonal gridiron pattern, provided the connective tissue that unified the capital [Fig. 1.]<ref>Richard W. Stephenson, ''“A Plan Whol[l]y New”: Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s Plan of the City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1993), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Q3WX7W32 view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 150&ndash;65, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; Herman Kahn and Pierre L’Enfant, “Appendix to Pierre L’Enfant’s Letter to the Commissioners May 30, 1800,” ''Records of the Columbia Historical Society'' 44/45 (1942/43): 191&ndash;213, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/6FSVS97H view on Zotero].</ref>
+In July 1790, Congress authorized the building of a new capital city on the Potomac River. L’Enfant had already written to Washington the previous year asking to design “the Foundation of a city which is to become the Capital of this vast Empire.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 127, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Duly appointed to survey and map the Federal territory, L’Enfant developed a visionary plan for a great metropolis. Drawing on his experience as a military engineer and borrowing ideas from the maps of various European cities provided to him by [[Thomas Jefferson]], he reinterpreted Old World conventions according to American ideals.<ref>Berg 2007, 105&ndash;13, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Kirk Savage, ''Monument Wars: Washington, DC, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 29&ndash;30, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WNN7I268 view on Zotero]; Pamela Scott, “‘This Vast Empire’: The Iconography of the Mall, 1791&ndash;1848,” in ''The Mall in Washington'', ed. Richard Longstreth, Studies in the History of Art, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers, XIV (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991), 37&ndash;45, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/N4WS8QU7 view on Zotero]; Therese O’Malley, “Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: The National Mall, Washington, DC 1791&ndash;1852" (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1989), 26&ndash;48, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero]. J. L. Sibley Jennings Jr., “Artistry as Design: L’Enfant’s Extraordinary City,” ''Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress'' 36 (1979): 231&ndash;37, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TC3E674S view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 147, 149, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Exploiting the existing topography, L’Enfant reserved the most commanding positions for “Grand Edifices” (principally, the “Congress House” and “President’s House”) and “Grand [[Square]]s.” He connected these focal points by means of thirteen diagonally radiating [[avenue]]s representative of the original colonies. The long [[vista]]s were to be punctuated by a series of landscaped circles and [[square]]s ornamented with [[fountain]]s, [[column]]s, [[obelisk]]s, and other monuments in memory of those who had contributed to the nation’s liberty and independence. Each of the states of the union was to take responsibility for “improving” one of the [[square]]s as an expression of its distinct identity. An underlying network of intersecting streets, laid out in an orthogonal gridiron pattern, provided the connective tissue that unified the capital [Fig. 1.]<ref>Richard W. Stephenson, ''“A Plan Whol[l]y New”: Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s Plan of the City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1993), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Q3WX7W32 view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 150&ndash;65, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; Herman Kahn and Pierre L’Enfant, “Appendix to Pierre L’Enfant’s Letter to the Commissioners May 30, 1800,” ''Records of the Columbia Historical Society'' 44/45 (1942/43): 191&ndash;213, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/6FSVS97H view on Zotero].</ref>
 A succession of clashes with the commissioners overseeing L’Enfant’s work resulted in his dismissal in 1792.<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 169&ndash;215, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Nevertheless, his plan for the city of Washington remained a touchstone for the capital’s development into the late 20th century.<ref>Michael Bednar, ''L’Enfant’s Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, DC'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/92VCHXR9 view on Zotero]; O’Malley 1989, 174, 184, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero]; Jennings 1979, 242&ndash;62, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant worked on a number of other projects that ended abortively as a result of their outsize ambition and expense, as well as the architect’s prickly personality. These include the city plan and hydraulic system for Paterson, New Jersey (1793), [[Robert Morris|Robert Morris's]] mansion in Philadelphia (1794&ndash;96), Fort Mifflin on the Delaware (1793&ndash;95), and Fort Washington on the Potomac (1814).<ref>Ryan K. Smith, ''Robert Morris’s Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 60&ndash;201, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZKNMARKC view on Zotero]; Russell I. Fries, “European vs. American Engineering: Pierre Charles L’Enfant and the Water Power System of Paterson, NJ,” ''Northeast Historical Archaeology'' 4 (1974): 68&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/II6KF9NI view on Zotero].</ref>
@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
-*L’Enfant, Pierre-Charles, June 22, 1791, in a report to [[George Washington]] on his plans for Washington, DC (quoted in Caemmerer 1950: 151&ndash;53)<ref name="Caemmerer 1950"></ref>
+*L’Enfant, Pierre-Charles, June 22, 1791, in a report to George Washington on his plans for Washington, DC (quoted in Caemmerer 1950: 151&ndash;53)<ref name="Caemmerer 1950"></ref>
 :“. . . having first determined some principal points to which I wished making the rest subordinate I next made the distribution regular with streets at right angle ''north-south'' and ''east west'' but afterwards I opened others on various directions as [[avenue]]s to and from every principal places, wishing by this not merely to contrast with the general regularity nor to afford a greater variety of pleasant [[seat]]s and [[prospect]] as will be obtained from the advantageous ground over the which the [[avenue]]s are mostly directed but principally to connect each part of the city with more efficacy by, if I may so express, making the real distance less from place to place in menaging on them a reisprocity of sight and making them thus seemingly connected promot a rapide stellement over the whole. . . .
-:“. . . a [[canal]] being easy to open from the eastern branch and to be lead across the first settlement and carried toward the mouth of the [T]iber where it will again give an issue into the Potowmack and at a distance not to far off for to admit the boats from the grand navigation [[canal]] from getting in, will undoubtedly facilitate a conveyance most advantageous to trading Interest. . . .
+:“. . . a [[canal]] being easy to open from the eastern branch and to be lead across the first settlement and carried toward the mouth of the [T]iber where it will again give an issue into the Potowmack and at a distance not to far off for to admit the boats from the grand navigation [[canal]] from getting in, will undoubtedly facilitate a conveyance most advantageous to trading Interest. . .
 :“I placed the three grand Departments of State contigous to the principle Palace and on the way leading to the Congressional House the gardens of the one together with the [[park]] and other improvement on the dependency are connected with the publique [[walk]] and [[avenue]] to the Congress house in a manner as most [must] form a whole as grand as it will be agreeable and convenient to the whole city which form [from] the distribution of the local [locale] will have an early access to this place of general resort and all along side of which may be placed play houses, room of assembly, accademies and all such sort of places as may be attractive to the learned and afford diversion to the idle. . . .
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 <gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
-Image:2095.jpg|Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, ''Plan of the City intended for the Permanent Seat of the Government of t[he] United States'', 1791.
+Image:2095.jpg|Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, ''Plan of the City intended for the Permanent [[Seat]] of the Government of t[he] United States'', 1791.
-Image:1134.jpg|Facsimile reproduction of Pierre-Charles L’Enfant’s ''Plan of the City intended for the Permanent Seat of the Government of the United States'', made in 1887.
+Image:1134.jpg|Facsimile reproduction of Pierre-Charles L’Enfant’s ''Plan of the City intended for the Permanent [[Seat]] of the Government of the United States'', made in 1887.
 </gallery>

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:44, October 3, 2018
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−	'''Pierre-Charles L’Enfant''' (August 2, 1754–June 14, 1825) was a French architect, civil engineer, and urban designer best known for his plan of 1791 of the nation's capital of Washington~~, DC~~.	+	'''Pierre-Charles L’Enfant''' (August 2, 1754–June 14, 1825) was a French architect, civil engineer, and urban designer best known for his plan of 1791 of the nation's capital city of Washington.

	==History==		==History==

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 In July 1790, Congress authorized the building of a new capital city on the Potomac River. L’Enfant had already written to [[George Washington|Washington]] the previous year asking to design “the Foundation of a city which is to become the Capital of this vast Empire.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 127, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Duly appointed to survey and map the Federal territory, L’Enfant developed a visionary plan for a great metropolis. Drawing on his experience as a military engineer and borrowing ideas from the maps of various European cities provided to him by [[Thomas Jefferson]], he reinterpreted Old World conventions according to American ideals.<ref>Berg 2007, 105&ndash;13, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Kirk Savage, ''Monument Wars: Washington, DC, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 29&ndash;30, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WNN7I268 view on Zotero]; Pamela Scott, “‘This Vast Empire’: The Iconography of the Mall, 1791&ndash;1848,” in ''The Mall in Washington'', ed. Richard Longstreth, Studies in the History of Art, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers, XIV (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991), 37&ndash;45, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/N4WS8QU7 view on Zotero]; Therese O’Malley, “Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: The National Mall, Washington, DC 1791&ndash;1852" (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1989), 26&ndash;48, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero]. J. L. Sibley Jennings Jr., “Artistry as Design: L’Enfant’s Extraordinary City,” ''Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress'' 36 (1979): 231&ndash;37, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TC3E674S view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 147, 149, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Exploiting the existing topography, L’Enfant reserved the most commanding positions for “Grand Edifices” (principally, the “Congress House” and “President’s House”) and “Grand [[Square]]s.” He connected these focal points by means of thirteen diagonally radiating [[avenue]]s representative of the original colonies. The long [[vista]]s were to be punctuated by a series of landscaped circles and [[square]]s ornamented with [[fountain]]s, [[column]]s, [[obelisk]]s, and other monuments in memory of those who had contributed to the nation’s liberty and independence. Each of the states of the union was to take responsibility for “improving” one of the [[square]]s as an expression of its distinct identity. An underlying network of intersecting streets, laid out in an orthogonal gridiron pattern, provided the connective tissue that unified the capital [Fig. 1.]<ref>Richard W. Stephenson, ''“A Plan Whol[l]y New”: Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s Plan of the City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1993), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Q3WX7W32 view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 150&ndash;65, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; Herman Kahn and Pierre L’Enfant, “Appendix to Pierre L’Enfant’s Letter to the Commissioners May 30, 1800,” ''Records of the Columbia Historical Society'' 44/45 (1942/43): 191&ndash;213, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/6FSVS97H view on Zotero].</ref>
-A succession of clashes with the commissioners overseeing L’Enfant’s work resulted in his dismissal in 1792.<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 169&ndash;215, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Nevertheless, his plan for the city of Washington remained a touchstone for the capital’s development into the late 20th century.<ref>Michael Bednar, ''L’Enfant’s Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, DC'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/92VCHXR9 view on Zotero]; O’Malley 1989, 174, 184, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero]; Jennings 1979, 242&ndash;62, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant worked on a number of other projects that ended abortively as a result of their outsize ambition and expense, as well as the architect’s prickly personality. These include the city plan and hydraulic system for Paterson, New Jersey (1793), [[Robert Morris]]’s mansion in Philadelphia (1794&ndash;96), Fort Mifflin on the Delaware (1793&ndash;95), and Fort Washington on the Potomac (1814).<ref>Ryan K. Smith, ''Robert Morris’s Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 60&ndash;201, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZKNMARKC view on Zotero]; Russell I. Fries, “European vs. American Engineering: Pierre Charles L’Enfant and the Water Power System of Paterson, NJ,” ''Northeast Historical Archaeology'' 4 (1974): 68&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/II6KF9NI view on Zotero].</ref>
+A succession of clashes with the commissioners overseeing L’Enfant’s work resulted in his dismissal in 1792.<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 169&ndash;215, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Nevertheless, his plan for the city of Washington remained a touchstone for the capital’s development into the late 20th century.<ref>Michael Bednar, ''L’Enfant’s Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, DC'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/92VCHXR9 view on Zotero]; O’Malley 1989, 174, 184, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero]; Jennings 1979, 242&ndash;62, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant worked on a number of other projects that ended abortively as a result of their outsize ambition and expense, as well as the architect’s prickly personality. These include the city plan and hydraulic system for Paterson, New Jersey (1793), [[Robert Morris|Robert Morris's]] mansion in Philadelphia (1794&ndash;96), Fort Mifflin on the Delaware (1793&ndash;95), and Fort Washington on the Potomac (1814).<ref>Ryan K. Smith, ''Robert Morris’s Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 60&ndash;201, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ZKNMARKC view on Zotero]; Russell I. Fries, “European vs. American Engineering: Pierre Charles L’Enfant and the Water Power System of Paterson, NJ,” ''Northeast Historical Archaeology'' 4 (1974): 68&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/II6KF9NI view on Zotero].</ref>
 —''Robyn Asleson''

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''Pierre-Charles L’Enfant''' (August 2, 1754&ndash;June 14, 1825) was a French architect, civil engineer, and urban designer best known for his plan of 1791 of the nations capital city of Washington, DC.
+'''Pierre-Charles L’Enfant''' (August 2, 1754&ndash;June 14, 1825) was a French architect, civil engineer, and urban designer best known for his plan of 1791 of the nation's capital of Washington, DC.
 ==History==
 [[File:2095.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, ''Plan of the City intended for the Permanent Seat of the Government of t[he] United States'', 1791.]]
-From 1771 to 1776, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where his father, a painter specializing in landscapes and military subjects, was an instructor. Thereafter, he enlisted as a volunteer in the American Continental Army, serving primarily in the capacity of draftsman and surveyor. L’Enfant provided drawings for the American army’s first training manual and, while stationed at Valley Forge, drew a portrait of General [[George Washington]], who became an influential supporter of L’Enfant’s post-military career.<ref>Philander D. Chase, ed., ''The Papers of George Washington'', Revolutionary War Series, 90 vols. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 17:129, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DN4FXZTM, view on Zotero]; Scott W. Berg, ''Grand Avenues : The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC'' (New York : Pantheon Books, 2007), 19&ndash;47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; H. Paul Caemmerer, ''Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Planner of the City Beautiful, The City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: National Republic Publishing Company, 1950), 1&ndash;67, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant had attained the rank of Captain of Engineers by the time of the British surrender in 1781. The following year, at the request of the French ambassador, [[George Washington|Washington]] sent L’Enfant to Philadelphia (then the U.S. capital) to design a colonnaded [[pavilion]] for dancing and other entertainments in honor of the birth of an heir to Louis XVI. According to Benjamin Rush, the surrounding grounds were “cut into beautiful [[walk]]s and divided with cedar and pine branches into artificial [[grove]]s.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 87&ndash;88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; see also Sally Webster, “Pierre-Charles L’Enfant and the Iconography of Independence,” ''Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide'' 7 (2008), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WUICCGFC view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant established a successful civil engineering practice in New York City, which became the seat of the federal government in 1785, and was celebrated for his efficient and elegant renovation of the old city hall, where the first United States Congress met and [[George Washington|Washington]] was inaugurated as president in 1789.<ref>Berg 2007, 64&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 108&ndash;18, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref>
+From 1771 to 1776, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where his father—a painter specializing in landscapes and military subjects—was an instructor. Thereafter, L'Enfant enlisted as a volunteer in the American Continental Army, serving primarily in the capacity of draftsman and surveyor. He provided drawings for the American army’s first training manual and, while stationed at Valley Forge, drew a portrait of General [[George Washington]], who became an influential supporter of L’Enfant’s post-military career.<ref>Philander D. Chase, ed., ''The Papers of George Washington'', Revolutionary War Series, 90 vols. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 17:129, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DN4FXZTM, view on Zotero]; Scott W. Berg, ''Grand Avenues : The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC'' (New York : Pantheon Books, 2007), 19&ndash;47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; H. Paul Caemmerer, ''Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Planner of the City Beautiful, The City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: National Republic Publishing Company, 1950), 1&ndash;67, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant had attained the rank of Captain of Engineers by the time of the British surrender in 1781. The following year, at the request of the French ambassador, [[George Washington|Washington]] sent L’Enfant to Philadelphia (then the U.S. capital) to design a colonnaded [[pavilion]] for dancing and other entertainments in honor of the birth of an heir to Louis XVI. According to Benjamin Rush, the surrounding grounds were “cut into beautiful [[walk]]s and divided with cedar and pine branches into artificial [[grove]]s.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 87&ndash;88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; see also Sally Webster, “Pierre-Charles L’Enfant and the Iconography of Independence,” ''Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide'' 7 (2008), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WUICCGFC view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant established a successful civil engineering practice in New York City, which became the seat of the federal government in 1785. He was celebrated for his efficient and elegant renovation of the New York's second City Hall, later renamed Federal Hall, where the first United States Congress met and [[George Washington|Washington]] was inaugurated as president in 1789.<ref>Berg 2007, 64&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 108&ndash;18, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref>
 In July 1790, Congress authorized the building of a new capital city on the Potomac River. L’Enfant had already written to [[George Washington|Washington]] the previous year asking to design “the Foundation of a city which is to become the Capital of this vast Empire.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 127, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Duly appointed to survey and map the Federal territory, L’Enfant developed a visionary plan for a great metropolis. Drawing on his experience as a military engineer and borrowing ideas from the maps of various European cities provided to him by [[Thomas Jefferson]], he reinterpreted Old World conventions according to American ideals.<ref>Berg 2007, 105&ndash;13, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Kirk Savage, ''Monument Wars: Washington, DC, the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 29&ndash;30, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WNN7I268 view on Zotero]; Pamela Scott, “‘This Vast Empire’: The Iconography of the Mall, 1791&ndash;1848,” in ''The Mall in Washington'', ed. Richard Longstreth, Studies in the History of Art, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers, XIV (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991), 37&ndash;45, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/N4WS8QU7 view on Zotero]; Therese O’Malley, “Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: The National Mall, Washington, DC 1791&ndash;1852" (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1989), 26&ndash;48, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero]. J. L. Sibley Jennings Jr., “Artistry as Design: L’Enfant’s Extraordinary City,” ''Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress'' 36 (1979): 231&ndash;37, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TC3E674S view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 147, 149, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> Exploiting the existing topography, L’Enfant reserved the most commanding positions for “Grand Edifices” (principally, the “Congress House” and “President’s House”) and “Grand [[Square]]s.” He connected these focal points by means of thirteen diagonally radiating [[avenue]]s representative of the original colonies. The long [[vista]]s were to be punctuated by a series of landscaped circles and [[square]]s ornamented with [[fountain]]s, [[column]]s, [[obelisk]]s, and other monuments in memory of those who had contributed to the nation’s liberty and independence. Each of the states of the union was to take responsibility for “improving” one of the [[square]]s as an expression of its distinct identity. An underlying network of intersecting streets, laid out in an orthogonal gridiron pattern, provided the connective tissue that unified the capital [Fig. 1.]<ref>Richard W. Stephenson, ''“A Plan Whol[l]y New”: Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s Plan of the City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1993), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Q3WX7W32 view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 150&ndash;65, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; Herman Kahn and Pierre L’Enfant, “Appendix to Pierre L’Enfant’s Letter to the Commissioners May 30, 1800,” ''Records of the Columbia Historical Society'' 44/45 (1942/43): 191&ndash;213, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/6FSVS97H view on Zotero].</ref>

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−	'''Pierre-Charles L’Enfant''' (August 2, 1754–June 14, 1825) was a French architect, civil engineer, and urban designer best known for his 1791 ~~plan for laying out~~ the ~~U.S.~~ capital city of Washington, DC.	+	'''Pierre-Charles L’Enfant''' (August 2, 1754–June 14, 1825) was a French architect, civil engineer, and urban designer best known for his plan of 1791 of the nations capital city of Washington, DC.

	==History==		==History==

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 ==History==
-[[File:2095.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, ''Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t[he] United States'', 1791.]]
+[[File:2095.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, ''Plan of the city intended for the Permanent Seat of the Government of t[he] United States'', 1791.]]
 From 1771 to 1776, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where his father, a painter specializing in landscapes and military subjects, was an instructor. Thereafter, he enlisted as a volunteer in the American Continental Army, serving primarily in the capacity of draftsman and surveyor. L’Enfant provided drawings for the American army’s first training manual and, while stationed at Valley Forge, drew a portrait of General [[George Washington]], who became an influential supporter of L’Enfant’s post-military career.<ref>Philander D. Chase, ed., ''The Papers of George Washington'', Revolutionary War Series, 90 vols. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 17:129, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DN4FXZTM, view on Zotero]; Scott W. Berg, ''Grand Avenues : The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC'' (New York : Pantheon Books, 2007), 19&ndash;47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; H. Paul Caemmerer, ''Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Planner of the City Beautiful, The City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: National Republic Publishing Company, 1950), 1&ndash;67, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant had attained the rank of Captain of Engineers by the time of the British surrender in 1781. The following year, at the request of the French ambassador, [[George Washington|Washington]] sent L’Enfant to Philadelphia (then the U.S. capital) to design a colonnaded [[pavilion]] for dancing and other entertainments in honor of the birth of an heir to Louis XVI. According to Benjamin Rush, the surrounding grounds were “cut into beautiful [[walk]]s and divided with cedar and pine branches into artificial [[grove]]s.”<ref>Caemmerer 1950, 87&ndash;88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero]; see also Sally Webster, “Pierre-Charles L’Enfant and the Iconography of Independence,” ''Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide'' 7 (2008), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/WUICCGFC view on Zotero].</ref> L’Enfant established a successful civil engineering practice in New York City, which became the seat of the federal government in 1785, and was celebrated for his efficient and elegant renovation of the old city hall, where the first United States Congress met and [[George Washington|Washington]] was inaugurated as president in 1789.<ref>Berg 2007, 64&ndash;70, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JME5Z7QW view on Zotero]; Caemmerer 1950, 108&ndash;18, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PUW9KRFB view on Zotero].</ref>