Andrew Jackson Downing creates a landscape plan for the Mall
Item
Title
Andrew Jackson Downing creates a landscape plan for the Mall
Description
In 1850 President Millard Fillmore asked Andrew Jackson Downing, the nation's preeminent landscape gardener and advocate of a rural American style, to design the landscaping for the largely undeveloped National Mall and Smithsonian grounds. Downing’s plan departed from the classic design originally planned for the Mall. A champion of public parks, Downing created a plan which connected four different, but compatible, garden spaces extending from the Capitol to the Washington Monument and using flora and fauna indigenous to the US, created a public museum of living trees and shrubs. Congress failed to allocate funds, however, and Downing’s plan never materialized.
Source
Smithsonian Institution Archive. View original.
Date
1850
18500000
Coverage
1830-1859
Type
Planning and Design
topic
building the mall
design & monuments
ghost mall