Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 4.6
Washington, as it was chosen to be the capital, with the central axis and main thorough-
fares as designed by L'Enfant
1
The Congress,
2
The White House,
3
The Green Lawn area on the horizontal axis,
4
Pennsylvania Ave, 5 The Potomac River, 6 The Anacostia River,
7
The Goose Greek (Tiber
River),
8
The marginal region of the highland in the north (This diagram is a copy of the map
of survey by Ellicott in 1793)
of “Almighty Sovereignty” had varied in forms of expression. Then came the time
when Dadu of the Yuan Dynasty was built, which not only inherited the standards
and system of building a city prescribed in the classic of
Kaogongji
,
Zhouli
, but also
utilized the natural distribution of the water sources, thus laying the foundation of
Beijing, the capital city of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Hence, we can claim that
the design and plan of the Old City of Beijing is an overarching masterpiece in
building capital cities during the more than 2,000 years of feudalism in China.
The historical background of the building of the city of Washington is totally
different from that of Old Beijing. To study the basic concept embodied in the
design and planning of Washington, we must fi rst understand characteristics of its
historical background.
