Washington DC
Winter 1791 We are told that George Washington first chose the location of the four corners of the District of Columbia boundary, assigned Ellicott to stake those out, then turned his attention to the exact location and design of the Capital City within that 100 square miles. Jefferson had requested, on Feb 2, that Ellicott proceed to the area to survey the boundary lines of the district. One of his first jobs was to survey, measure and mark the four 10 mile lines, placing a monument every mile through the woods. This means that Ellicott was working in the area for a month before L'Enfant arrived in March. When L'Enfant came in, his first task was to give his impressions of the area, and help decide where to locate things within the district boundary that Ellicott was laying out. On March 7th Jefferson sent L'Enfant a letter on behalf of the President asking him to make "drawings of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the Federal town and buildings". L'Enfant arrived in Georgetown on March 9th and reported to GW on the 29th when he arrived there. Washington's home, Mt. Vernon, is at the bottom of the image. * According to Stephenson, L'Enfant struggled to get his map ready for the occasion, and it remained unfinished at the moment of the President's arrival. (p 22) Remember L'Enfant had been there less than three weeks, so it wouldn't have been too much of a map yet. Plus his drawings would be mostly of the topographic features at that point, not unlike the Harmon map above. [Looking at that map, you can get a sense of what roads, ferries and bridges already existed.] On April 4, the President sent L'Enfant a copy of the map below drawn by Thomas Jefferson who Washington had assigned to supervise the project, and who lived near by, like GW. The dots represent the north-south east-west (orthogonal) grid of streets that result from connecting the corners of the oblique square of the district boundary (seen above). Recall that the ad quadratum begins with a cross in a square, the center of which is determined by the position of those corner points. That is to say, choosing the four corner points automatically determines the boundary lines, the diagonal lines and the center of the figure. In this case the corners are located so that the geometric center of the district lies on the north shore of the mouth of the Tiber. Note how Jefferson locates all of the city north of the Tiber Creek, and near Georgetown. L'Enfant is supposed to have liked the area of the city near the East Branch of the river, but Stephenson and others suggest that some of that may have been for show in order to influence landowners there to 'buy into' the idea of developing the city. This means that as of April 4, the location of the CB and WH was still 'up in the air'. Theoretically the decision to locate the White House on one side of the creek and the Capitol on the other was a result of a compromise with land owners in the east and western areas of the proposed city, just as the location of the district was said to have been a compromise between northern and southern states. (Short meditation on duality, conflict and compromise.) The Notion of Centrality in the Map From Nicholas Mann's book The Sacred Geometry of Washington DC: "From my study of traditional architecture, I knew that the first act in the building of any important settlement, city or sanctuary was the location of the center. The center was always located first and only then came the definition of the boundary, the finding of the directions, and the marking of their measures." (p 68) We will presume that this 'traditional architecture' that Mann refers to is related to the system of number and proportion that he says was employed in the temples and cities of the past and that is present in the original design of the US capital city (p v), but we know for a fact that this is not the order that was followed in the building of the city of Washington. Ellicott was establishing the boundary lines and corners for a month before L'Enfant gets there to consider the landscape. Plus the square generates it's own center and meridian line. These facts do not stop Mann from developing an argument that names L'Enfant as the "prime mover" when it comes to the map (vi), and which implies that he followed the same ceremonial as the traditional architects who located the center first, then defined the boundaries and directions from there. On page 85 and 6 we read that "L'Enfant had by the end of March 1791 completed the first acts in the design of the order of the new city. He had established the center of the city at the Capitol, had outlined it's form, and had set it upon an elevation that accentuates it's vertical axis, connecting the above with below." 'Outlined it's form' presumably refers to the district boundary. 'Set it upon an elevation' refers to the CB which Mann sees as anlogous to a cathedral and axis mundi. The fact is that the location of the CB had not been determined at the end of March as the Jefferson image above shows; the oblique square district boundary was defined before L'Enfant came in, and the orthogonal street grid appears to have been a foregone conclusion. Mann is wrong and intellectually dishonest to suggest that L'Enfant founded a center before a boundary was determined. The boundary came first here, and the very act of setting up a boundary square creates it's own center when we connect the corners. That is the geometric center of the district. But it is not the case that the Capitol lies at the center of the square that constitutes the boundary although you would have a hard time proving it that from what Mann writes. "The template begins with the establishment of the center, the Capitol Building." (page 3) "The Capitol lay at the center of his plan." (p 132) Does it? Here he sounds literal and geometric. He even says (in an email) that "L'Enfant placed Congress at the geometrical center of his new world order". "It is unequivoacably clear that L'Enfant intended to make the House of Congress the center of both the Federal District and of the United States." (p 72) Here he is clearly being metaphorical. "By placing the Capitol on primary axes in the center of the plan, and relating all other key buildings to this site in a ratio that is fundamental to the structures of the natural world, L'Enfant gave formal, visible expression to the all-powerful central and representative qualities of the Legislative and it's generative position in the New World order." (p 171) Note that this is Mann suggesting that the fact that L'Enfant put the Capitol at the center of the plan is a statement about his views of the Legislature. This interpretation is echoed by Jeffery F. Meyer in his Myths in Stone who says that since L'Enfant was aware that he was designing the capital of a democracy 'he deliberately located the Congress House, not the president's mansion, as the center in the city plan'. Meyer, like Mann, dsitinguishes between the center of the district (a geographic point) and the center of the city plan (a symbolic place). Looking at the image below you can see that the Capitol does not lie at the geometric center of the district; and Mann does mention in one sentence that the literal center falls on the Pan-Am Building, but he never emphasizes the fact. Instead he uses a presentation that implies that the symbolic center and the geometric center are one in the same. In Mann's book you are lead to believe that the Capitol lies at the literal center of the district when he is speaking of the plan for the city within the district. In chapter 5 he speaks of a geometric order, and intruduces us to the traditional form of establishing the city; center first, then the boundaries. In his discussion of the idea of the Capitol being at the center of the plan he uses an illustration that shows the CB at the center of an equal armed cross. Next he mentions the boundary that presumably derives from this center, but he uses the square district boundary as the example for this, when we know that the Capitol is not at the center of that boundary; also the boundary position was not derived from that of the CB as pointed out above. Mann is speaking of a symbolic center not a geometric center of anything, but he seeks to incorporate it within the geometric pattern of the city by equivocating in his use of the term 'center'. See Ellicott's 1793 topographic map of the District area Mann's idea that the Capitol is the center of the plan appears to be supported by the fact that the streets are numbered and lettered beginning there; but you can also consider the Capitol as marking the east boundary of a lane 32 blocks wide that centers on 16th Street. Georgetown and the CB are both offeset 16 blocks from the center line running north and south through the White House, which is itself offset from the corner of the district boundary. As to the notion that the CB constitutes the center because the streets are named and numbered from there, this idea came from the Commissioners in September and did not issue from L'Enfant in March. (Arnebeck page 60) Going back to Mann's claim that by late March L'Enfant had established the center of the plan, had defined the boundaries and had set the Capitol up as the axis mundi and omphalos of the nation, we know that none of this is true. Washington chose the boundary corners which define the boundary lines and Ellicott began surveying those before L'Enfant arrived. Washington sent L'Enfant a copy of Jefferson drawing on April 4 that featured the WH and CB both north of the Tiber; the location for those had not been chosen by then. It was the Planning Commission who 'centered' the CB by deciding that the street should be named and numbered from there. The number of wrong facts and ideas in Mann's work continue to pile up. The plan doesn't have one center point like a circle, it has two focii like an ellipse; just as it has two major axes, 16th Street (n-s) and E Capitol St (e-w). The border does not in any way derive from the Capitol Building. The position of the border was determined long before that of the CB. Mann appears intent on crafting a mythology that does not depend on historical facts. Compromise There are two axes of symmentry in the map, 16th Street (red through the White House) and East Capitol Street (blue running east from the CB). The streets are symmetrical east and west around 16th Street and north south around E Cap St. Neither the WH nor the CB is located at the center where these two axes cross, the Washington Monument is the closest thing to there. Also, neither axis is really centered in the square. The White House faces the North Star and the Capitol faces the equinox sunrise (east). Mann sites the movement of the theoretical prime meridian (north south line) from the CB to the WH as a source of imbalance in American political life, since to him it represented a shift from the legislature centered map to a presidential centered one. (Note the use of 'centered' meaning falls on a line, as in if the meridian crosses the CB it is legislatively centered, but if it crosses the WH it is presidentially centered.) The suggestion is that the balance could be restored by the proper civil engineering, ie moving the 'center' again to the opposite extreme. Mann focuses on strife rather than compromise. For him it is either or, all or nothing. L'Enfant designed the Capitol as the center to favor the legislature as a symbol of the democratic process. Symbolically assigning the meridian line through the CB would supposedly enforce this idea, whereas moving it to the more central and logical position on 16th Street represents an unbalanced situation. Note the equivocation; a line is not a center of the plan the way a building is. How does shifting a symbolic line to the west move the center of the plan from the CB to the WH? It doesn't. But it does return it close to the position of the Washington Monument, the balance point for these two axes. When Jefferson moved the meridian to 16th Street it was not to empasize the preisdency but to balance these two axes. He placed a monument due south of the WH and due west of the CB. Just consider the facts for a moment. There are no monuments along N/S Capitol Streets as there are along 16th Street. The position of 16th near to the center of the square appears to be the best place for the grand meridian line. The Capitol appears to be in a better place for an east west base line than another north south one. Remember that we are laying out a orthogonal grid of streets, we need a set of intersecting lines to start with. Mann fails to recognize that one of the keywords associated with the DC plan, as well as the governing process in general is compromise. He couches L'Enfant's plan as a victory of the legislature over the presidency by symbolically placing the CB at the center of the plan. I believe that it was an attempt to symbolically balance the two. There are two focal points in DC, not just one. The judiciary was symbolically insulated from these. What if the balance point wasn't affiliated with a branch of the government? Continue

Washington DC

Winter 1791

We are told that George Washington first chose the location of the four corners of the District of Columbia boundary, assigned Ellicott to stake those out, then turned his attention to the exact location and design of the Capital City within that 100 square miles. Jefferson had requested, on Feb 2, that Ellicott proceed to the area to survey the boundary lines of the district. One of his first jobs was to survey, measure and mark the four 10 mile lines, placing a monument every mile through the woods. This means that Ellicott was working in the area for a month before L'Enfant arrived in March.
When L'Enfant came in, his first task was to give his impressions of the area, and help decide where to locate things within the district boundary that Ellicott was laying out. On March 7th Jefferson sent L'Enfant a letter on behalf of the President asking him to make "drawings of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the Federal town and buildings". L'Enfant arrived in Georgetown on March 9th and reported to GW on the 29th when he arrived there.

Washington's home, Mt. Vernon, is at the bottom of the image.
* According to Stephenson, L'Enfant struggled to get his map ready for the occasion, and it remained unfinished at the moment of the President's arrival. (p 22) Remember L'Enfant had been there less than three weeks, so it wouldn't have been too much of a map yet. Plus his drawings would be mostly of the topographic features at that point, not unlike the Harmon map above. [Looking at that map, you can get a sense of what roads, ferries and bridges already existed.]
On April 4, the President sent L'Enfant a copy of the map below drawn by Thomas Jefferson who Washington had assigned to supervise the project, and who lived near by, like GW. The dots represent the north-south east-west (orthogonal) grid of streets that result from connecting the corners of the oblique square of the district boundary (seen above).
Recall that the ad quadratum begins with a cross in a square, the center of which is determined by the position of those corner points. That is to say, choosing the four corner points automatically determines the boundary lines, the diagonal lines and the center of the figure. In this case the corners are located so that the geometric center of the district lies on the north shore of the mouth of the Tiber.

Note how Jefferson locates all of the city north of the Tiber Creek, and near Georgetown. L'Enfant is supposed to have liked the area of the city near the East Branch of the river, but Stephenson and others suggest that some of that may have been for show in order to influence landowners there to 'buy into' the idea of developing the city. This means that as of April 4, the location of the CB and WH was still 'up in the air'. Theoretically the decision to locate the White House on one side of the creek and the Capitol on the other was a result of a compromise with land owners in the east and western areas of the proposed city, just as the location of the district was said to have been a compromise between northern and southern states. (Short meditation on duality, conflict and compromise.)

The Notion of Centrality in the Map
From Nicholas Mann's book The Sacred Geometry of Washington DC: "From my study of traditional architecture, I knew that the first act in the building of any important settlement, city or sanctuary was the location of the center. The center was always located first and only then came the definition of the boundary, the finding of the directions, and the marking of their measures." (p 68)
We will presume that this 'traditional architecture' that Mann refers to is related to the system of number and proportion that he says was employed in the temples and cities of the past and that is present in the original design of the US capital city (p v), but we know for a fact that this is not the order that was followed in the building of the city of Washington. Ellicott was establishing the boundary lines and corners for a month before L'Enfant gets there to consider the landscape. Plus the square generates it's own center and meridian line.
These facts do not stop Mann from developing an argument that names L'Enfant as the "prime mover" when it comes to the map (vi), and which implies that he followed the same ceremonial as the traditional architects who located the center first, then defined the boundaries and directions from there.
On page 85 and 6 we read that "L'Enfant had by the end of March 1791 completed the first acts in the design of the order of the new city. He had established the center of the city at the Capitol, had outlined it's form, and had set it upon an elevation that accentuates it's vertical axis, connecting the above with below." 'Outlined it's form' presumably refers to the district boundary. 'Set it upon an elevation' refers to the CB which Mann sees as anlogous to a cathedral and axis mundi.

The fact is that the location of the CB had not been determined at the end of March as the Jefferson image above shows; the oblique square district boundary was defined before L'Enfant came in, and the orthogonal street grid appears to have been a foregone conclusion. Mann is wrong and intellectually dishonest to suggest that L'Enfant founded a center before a boundary was determined. The boundary came first here, and the very act of setting up a boundary square creates it's own center when we connect the corners. That is the geometric center of the district.
But it is not the case that the Capitol lies at the center of the square that constitutes the boundary although you would have a hard time proving it that from what Mann writes. "The template begins with the establishment of the center, the Capitol Building." (page 3) "The Capitol lay at the center of his plan." (p 132) Does it? Here he sounds literal and geometric. He even says (in an email) that "L'Enfant placed Congress at the geometrical center of his new world order".
"It is unequivoacably clear that L'Enfant intended to make the House of Congress the center of both the Federal District and of the United States." (p 72) Here he is clearly being metaphorical. "By placing the Capitol on primary axes in the center of the plan, and relating all other key buildings to this site in a ratio that is fundamental to the structures of the natural world, L'Enfant gave formal, visible expression to the all-powerful central and representative qualities of the Legislative and it's generative position in the New World order." (p 171)
Note that this is Mann suggesting that the fact that L'Enfant put the Capitol at the center of the plan is a statement about his views of the Legislature. This interpretation is echoed by Jeffery F. Meyer in his Myths in Stone who says that since L'Enfant was aware that he was designing the capital of a democracy 'he deliberately located the Congress House, not the president's mansion, as the center in the city plan'. Meyer, like Mann, dsitinguishes between the center of the district (a geographic point) and the center of the city plan (a symbolic place). Looking at the image below you can see that the Capitol does not lie at the geometric center of the district; and Mann does mention in one sentence that the literal center falls on the Pan-Am Building, but he never emphasizes the fact. Instead he uses a presentation that implies that the symbolic center and the geometric center are one in the same.
In Mann's book you are lead to believe that the Capitol lies at the literal center of the district when he is speaking of the plan for the city within the district. In chapter 5 he speaks of a geometric order, and intruduces us to the traditional form of establishing the city; center first, then the boundaries. In his discussion of the idea of the Capitol being at the center of the plan he uses an illustration that shows the CB at the center of an equal armed cross. Next he mentions the boundary that presumably derives from this center, but he uses the square district boundary as the example for this, when we know that the Capitol is not at the center of that boundary; also the boundary position was not derived from that of the CB as pointed out above. Mann is speaking of a symbolic center not a geometric center of anything, but he seeks to incorporate it within the geometric pattern of the city by equivocating in his use of the term 'center'.

See Ellicott's 1793 topographic map of the District area

Mann's idea that the Capitol is the center of the plan appears to be supported by the fact that the streets are numbered and lettered beginning there; but you can also consider the Capitol as marking the east boundary of a lane 32 blocks wide that centers on 16th Street. Georgetown and the CB are both offeset 16 blocks from the center line running north and south through the White House, which is itself offset from the corner of the district boundary. As to the notion that the CB constitutes the center because the streets are named and numbered from there, this idea came from the Commissioners in September and did not issue from L'Enfant in March. (Arnebeck page 60)

Going back to Mann's claim that by late March L'Enfant had established the center of the plan, had defined the boundaries and had set the Capitol up as the axis mundi and omphalos of the nation, we know that none of this is true. Washington chose the boundary corners which define the boundary lines and Ellicott began surveying those before L'Enfant arrived. Washington sent L'Enfant a copy of Jefferson drawing on April 4 that featured the WH and CB both north of the Tiber; the location for those had not been chosen by then. It was the Planning Commission who 'centered' the CB by deciding that the street should be named and numbered from there.
The number of wrong facts and ideas in Mann's work continue to pile up. The plan doesn't have one center point like a circle, it has two focii like an ellipse; just as it has two major axes, 16th Street (n-s) and E Capitol St (e-w). The border does not in any way derive from the Capitol Building. The position of the border was determined long before that of the CB. Mann appears intent on crafting a mythology that does not depend on historical facts.

Compromise
There are two axes of symmentry in the map, 16th Street (red through the White House) and East Capitol Street (blue running east from the CB). The streets are symmetrical east and west around 16th Street and north south around E Cap St. Neither the WH nor the CB is located at the center where these two axes cross, the Washington Monument is the closest thing to there. Also, neither axis is really centered in the square. The White House faces the North Star and the Capitol faces the equinox sunrise (east).
Mann sites the movement of the theoretical prime meridian (north south line) from the CB to the WH as a source of imbalance in American political life, since to him it represented a shift from the legislature centered map to a presidential centered one. (Note the use of 'centered' meaning falls on a line, as in if the meridian crosses the CB it is legislatively centered, but if it crosses the WH it is presidentially centered.) The suggestion is that the balance could be restored by the proper civil engineering, ie moving the 'center' again to the opposite extreme.
Mann focuses on strife rather than compromise. For him it is either or, all or nothing. L'Enfant designed the Capitol as the center to favor the legislature as a symbol of the democratic process. Symbolically assigning the meridian line through the CB would supposedly enforce this idea, whereas moving it to the more central and logical position on 16th Street represents an unbalanced situation. Note the equivocation; a line is not a center of the plan the way a building is. How does shifting a symbolic line to the west move the center of the plan from the CB to the WH? It doesn't. But it does return it close to the position of the Washington Monument, the balance point for these two axes.
When Jefferson moved the meridian to 16th Street it was not to empasize the preisdency but to balance these two axes. He placed a monument due south of the WH and due west of the CB.
Just consider the facts for a moment. There are no monuments along N/S Capitol Streets as there are along 16th Street. The position of 16th near to the center of the square appears to be the best place for the grand meridian line. The Capitol appears to be in a better place for an east west base line than another north south one. Remember that we are laying out a orthogonal grid of streets, we need a set of intersecting lines to start with.
Mann fails to recognize that one of the keywords associated with the DC plan, as well as the governing process in general is compromise. He couches L'Enfant's plan as a victory of the legislature over the presidency by symbolically placing the CB at the center of the plan. I believe that it was an attempt to symbolically balance the two. There are two focal points in DC, not just one. The judiciary was symbolically insulated from these.
What if the balance point wasn't affiliated with a branch of the government?

Continue