The Completion of Washington, D.C.

Cities and landscapes are the tangible expression of our material & spiritual worth. For good or for ill they express and define how we use or waste our resources, energy, time and land. Two score years of modernism and two score centuries of tradition stand to be compared and to be judged. In the historic districts of Charleston, Savannah and Williamsburg we possess ideals how small town America wants to live and present herself. No such emblematic model exists for the metropolitan centers. The eyes of the nation are turned towards Washington at all time. I believe that the symbolic heart of democracy and seat of government is destined to become the criterion for the rebirth of urban life & culture. What Venice is to us Washington will be to our children. The ultimate urban paradigm.

--Leon Krier, The Completion of Washington, D.C. 1985

Orientation

A number of people have heard me discuss my putative urban development project. Lots have been baffled by that title, and asked, well, what I'm going to write about. The project has been so open-ended so far that I couldn't even answer that question. But I think I've finally come up with my topic: Orientation.

The idea for orientation has a few sources. One may even be able to determine them elsewhere in this blog. Consider Sartre's definition by the Other, and how, on a grander scale, virtually everyone wants to be defined by others. One can only be guaranteed he is observed, though, when he is at the focal point of everyone else's eyes. This happens in certain parts of cities, and doesn't happen in others. Think of it as a goal of good design: to provide the most focal points.

The next source stems from my hatred of the radiant city, which has a similar idea of a lack of focal points, but in a much more stunning and morbid way. The sadness that comes from the radiant city is uniquely American, as was first pointed out by my hero, David Foster Wallace.

The third source comes from the beautiful facades of the architecture in Washington, D.C. I recognized right away the fact that these buildings had beautiful front doors added greatly to their aesthetic quality, but I want to take it just a little further and say that they make the city itself. Other cities, especially Paris, share this quality.

The last source I'll mention here comes from Leon Krier's 1985 project, The Completion of Washington D.C. Only through this beautiful collection of drawings for his vision of the city did I truly understand the original L'Enfant plan. Washington's avenues are designed to orient the city itself toward its most famous landmarks: the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the White House, etc. The city was designed as a capital city, and orientation is the key factor to realizing that dream.

However, I do not here propose listing various instances of the necessity to realize that orientation is what's at work. That would be easy (I just did it four times, for example). What I propose is to use existentialist philosophy to turn orientation on its head. To prove, through the emotions evoked by orientation, some key fact about the nature of reality. Now that I'm aware of it, my journey can begin.

Rugged

I wouldn't call myself a rugged individual, so much as a rugged individualist.

Indeed, as I was riding the train to New York the other night I found myself completely alone simply ruing every single group of people I've come across. You name them, I hate them. There will be no e.g. here, lest I insult you.

It left me feeling a bit depressed, actually. To think, I hate every group of people out there. It lasted a while until I realized that it wasn't people on the whole that I hate, it's groups of them. We've known this for years. As Tommy Lee Jones once said, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

Fortunately the streets of this fine city dispensed quick redemption as I made my way to Thursday night gallery openings. While the people involved with these openings were the most apparent of the individualist nature of the night, the unseen artists were my true heroes.

For the former, nearing the end of the night with much booze in my system, I entered a gallery with a wall-sized display of mirrors and lights, which everyone was staring at. Except one guy stood in front of it facing the other direction, drinking a can of PBR. I asked him, without turning around myself, if there was any art back there. He said he was looking at the real show. I've felt it many times myself: the majesty of these gallery openings is the crowd that attends them. The beauty of this moment was, however, how a single man got me to appreciate it.

For the latter, imagine a large gallery filled with vivid pictures of LA from 1979. A clever time capsule. The pictures were similar to all urban photo shows: unseeming streetscapes which are just beautiful if you stop to see them. Once again, the crowd, or a more abstract version of it, the city, shown to be beautiful by one clever individual.

I've always supported admitting the nature of reality as soon as possible, no matter how brutal. The fact is that crowds make up reality, but individuals are the ones who perceive it.