BGuthrie Photos: DC -- GWU -- Museum and Textile Museum -- Exhibit: Best Laid Plans: Designs for a Capital City

DC -- GWU -- Museum and Textile Museum -- Exhibit: Best Laid Plans: Designs for a Capital City:

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Description of Pictures: Best Laid Plans: Designs for a Capital City
Detail of print showing plans for the National Mall
June 15–December 22, 2019

Every landmark in Washington, D.C., has a story. Some never made it past the drawing board. This exhibition examines unrealized designs for the Washington Monument, Memorial Bridge, and other structures around the city through historical prints and paintings from the museum’s Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[1] GWMLAI_190614_001_STITCH.JPG

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[2] GWMLAI_190614_002.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] GWMLAI_190614_005.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[4] GWMLAI_190614_009.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[5] GWMLAI_190614_012.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[6] GWMLAI_190614_017.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[7] GWMLAI_190614_023.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[8] GWMLAI_190614_037.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[9] GWMLAI_190614_044.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[10] GWMLAI_190614_055.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[11] GWMLAI_190614_061.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[12] GWMLAI_190614_067.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[13] GWMLAI_190614_073.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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[17] GWMLAI_190614_083.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[18] GWMLAI_190614_086.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[19] GWMLAI_190614_089.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[20] GWMLAI_190614_092.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[21] GWMLAI_190614_096.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[22] GWMLAI_190614_101.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[23] GWMLAI_190614_111.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[24] GWMLAI_190614_114.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[25] GWMLAI_190614_117.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[26] GWMLAI_190614_125.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[27] GWMLAI_190614_131.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. GWMLAI_190614_002.JPG: Best Laid Plans: Designs for a Capital City
2. GWMLAI_190614_009.JPG: Every landmark in Washington, D.C. has a story. They are a result of competitions, decisions, dialogue, successes, failures, and reassessments. Despite often tumultuous beginnings, the final product appears proper and correct, as though there were no other option. As such, it is hard for residents and visitors to imagine how Washington's built environment, could have turned out differently. This exhibit uncovers the Washington that could have been through plans that were completely abandoned and others that were reimagined. Best laid plans may often go awry, but what can these designs of the city's landmarks and built environment tell us about the evolving visions for the capital city?
3. GWMLAI_190614_012.JPG: The Capitol at Washington -- Elevation of the Principal Front William Thornton, designer; Charles Augustin Busby, artist, engraving, 1823
4. GWMLAI_190614_017.JPG: United States Capitol, Washington, D.C. Thomas U. Walter, designer, 1857-1872
5. GWMLAI_190614_023.JPG: U.S. Capitol Frederick Gutekunst, photograph, 1870
6. GWMLAI_190614_037.JPG: The Indispensable Plan. Designs for Washington built environment were not limited to individual buildings. Pierre (Peter) L'Enfant's comprehensive design for the city, as depicted here, looked to cities of Europe to legitimize the young nation's claim to power. Sparkling fountains and magnificent monuments decorate grand avenues and parks. Peter Waddell, oil on canvas, 2018
7. GWMLAI_190614_044.JPG: The Village Monumental. But things didn't go according to plan. This painting depicts Washington at the time of L'Enfant's death in 1825. The city progressed more slowly than initially hoped. Limited funds from Congress and unrealized profits from the sales of city lots were not enough to build L'Enfant's ideal city. Though many aspects of his design remain unrealized, L'Enfant's monumental core and diagonal avenues have since become icons of Washington's built environment. Peter Waddell, oil on canvas, 2018
8. GWMLAI_190614_055.JPG: The Design of the National Washington Monument by Robert Mills of S.C. Robert Mills; designer, Charles R. Parsons; printer, 1845-1848
9. GWMLAI_190614_061.JPG: The Washington Monument. Louis P. Griffith, 1885
10. GWMLAI_190614_067.JPG: Birdseye View of the National Capital Including the Site of the Proposed World's Exposition of 1892 and Permanent Exposition of the Three Americas. A. Hoen & Co., lithographer; E. Kurtz Johnson, publisher, 1888
11. GWMLAI_190614_101.JPG: The Proposed Arlington Bridge Across the Potomac at Washington, D.C. Colonel Peter C. Hains, designer; Charles Graham, artist, January 3, 1891
12. GWMLAI_190614_111.JPG: Photograph No. 7 -- Perspective of Design No. 1, Memorial Bridge Design. W.R. Hutton, ca 1920
13. GWMLAI_190614_117.JPG: Memorial Bridge Across the Potomac at Washington, D.C. W.H. Burr, photo intaglio, ca 1920
14. GWMLAI_190614_125.JPG: Memorial Bridge Across the Potomac at Washington, D.C. George S. Morrison, photo intaglio, ca 1920
15. GWMLAI_190614_131.JPG: In 1923 the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission chose design firm McKim, Mead and White to design the bridge. Architect William Mitchell Kendall proposed the neoclassical arch bridge with decorative roundels that stands today.
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [GWU Museum and Textile Museum] [Display ALL GWU Museum and Textile Museum photos] [Museums (Art)] [Museums (History)] [Museums (Other)] [George Washington University] [Display ALL George Washington University photos]
2019 photos: Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Trips this year: a four-day jaunt to Massachusetts (Boston, Stockbridge, and Springfield) to experience rain in another state, Asheville, NC to visit Dad and his wife Dixie, four trips to New York City (including the United Nations, Flushing, and the New York Comic-Con), and my 14th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Utah). Number of photos taken this year: about 582,000.
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