Reading the landscape in Washington DC
is especially instructive, as so much of it represents something
larger, by both intent and incident. Pierre L’Enfant’s
18th century design for the city, a city built from scratch to
be the Nation’s Capitol, was an expression of the basic principles
of freedom and access to government that are fundamental to the
United States, manifested physically in the layout of the Capitol.
Like a civics lesson played out through urban planning, the city’s
hubs and radials were intended to describe the function of government:
The executive branch represented by the White House node, and
the legislative branch anchored on the Capitol Hill node. But
just as the judicial branch in L’Enfant’s design fell
by the wayside (the Supreme Court held sway in the Capitol Building
until its courthouse was built behind the Capitol in 1935), unforeseen
influences and events intervened, reality settled in. As the influence
of commerce became fused with the execution of government, the
city became dense with not only the vast offices of the expanding
departments of government, but also with the headquarters of the
national this and the national that - trade organizations, lobbying
groups, advocacy organizations - all seeking proximity to the
corridors of power, and to be part of the decision-making process.
Unlike, say, the Kremlin, with its physical walls containing and
isolating the government, all Washington could do was grow outward
into the suburbs of Maryland and Virginia, becoming a sprawling
conglomerate of representatives of the entities that rule or seek
to rule the American land. Within this capitol region is a sort
of condensed version of America (a headquarters of headquarters),
and its denizens are supremely aware of the importance of how
they are perceived. They go out of their way to present their
image and their view in a controlled and mediated manner - the
essence of politics. This landscape is then a sort of public-relationscape,
a place of display and representation. What better place could
there be to take a view of the current state of affairs, if this
is a new era, or not, than in the landscape of the capitol region,
where the interpretive layer is as thick as it comes.
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