The Monument as Manifesto: The Pierre Charles L'Enfant Memorial, 1909-1911

摘要

The celebrated plans of Washington, D.G., are canonical works in American planning history. The design of the tomb for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the author of the city's original plan, however, has not received similar attention. Disguising twentieth-century advocacy as nineteenth-century homage, L'Enfant's belated commemorators shaped the memorial as propaganda supporting their quest to imprint the McMillan Plan on L'Enfant's city. The intimate connection between monument making and planning history has remained previously unrecognized by historians because the tomb's principal designers so carefully concealed their involvement. This article not only probes the authorship of the memorial and the deployment of public art to support professional ambitions but also sheds new light on the birth of the planning profession.