City Beautiful-Washington D.C

The final blog is about Washington D.C and its urban morphology and structure. It is very important to note that Washington D.C was built according to an urban movement called City Beautiful, a movement that was a sort of a reform in North American architecture, that began by the 1900s. At the core of this movement was the beautification, the grandiosity and impeccable aesthetic of monuments that comprised a city. Examples beside Washington, is Chicago, Cleveland and so on. The proponents of this movement believed that by emphasizing the grandiosity and beautification of a city, this aesthetic would itself promote the best values found in humans and would promote their civic duties.

Now of course, everyone that has been in Washington D.C can witness that. An example of that is the National Mall that is between the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial. It encompasses in everyone a sense of beauty, grandiosity for the national monuments. The National Mall is an open park area with a “clear path” that leads to the Lincoln Memorial in a way “stressing” the importance of that monument. Another thing very important to notice from the buildings, like the White House, I can deduct that the layout of the city resembles ancient Greek/Roman Imperial architecture. Why ? Because Greece was de-facto the birthplace of democracy and Rome during the Republic Era inherited the fundamentals of democracy. So it make sense that the capital of the New Founded State, the USA, which was found on the pillars of democracy, would resemble these ancient cities where democracy itself was created and creating monuments to glorify these values. Also walking into the National Mall, one can clearly see a sense of order and placement. There is definitely not an organic type of planning when talking about Washington D.C, but rather a well-thought urban landscape that would promote good civic duties, honour, dignity and patriotism among the citizens. The buildings in my opinion are not an expression of power but more an expression of an undying ideal. They are big and placed in a very “arithmetic way” but in difference from lets say despotic regimes that are characterized by the same type of architecture, this monuments are not frightening, they do not impose authority but rather respect and love for the motherland. 

Spanish-American architecture

From the readings on OWL and some extra readings that I did we can derive some general points on why the Spanish adopted the grid urban form, how the Laws of the Indies influenced the Spanish American architecture and how the space was organized

First of all, as mentioned in the readings the only “new” thing that the Spanish architects found in the New World was a pre-urban form that was somewhat different from the urban morphology adopted in Europe at that time. The Spanish architects adopted the grid urban form for a variety of reasons:

1. If we carefully look at the pictures in the readings we can notice that all the cities are built around a Plaza Mayor. The Plaza Mayor is the focal point of these cities. Actually even the directions of the streets were chosen in such a way to protect the Plaza Mayor from the winds. (Wikipedia Information)
2. The cities that were built were very mechanic. Mechanic in the sense that the cities were meant to be cities that function for the population. Usually the site of the city would be a fertile land, near a river or near a water supply(could be a river, lake and so on). The land according to the Laws of the Indies was divided into parcels(like the early Romans did) in order for the agricultural production to be more efficient. The buildings still according to the Laws of the Indies had to be all the same size and height so that the city is aesthetic. Also the population growth was taken into account so the surface of the city was chosen in such a manner to host an explosion in population.
3. A third point that I think is important to make is that these cities(according to the readings) also resemble the bastides type of cities that France used to built. Bastides were built following a grid model, and usually built by a single founder. Beside the architectural similarities, I believe that these cities were similar to the bastides because it was a way to exert control and authority from the Empire that was in another continent.