Paris on the Potomac: The French Influence on the Architecture and Art of Washington, D.C.

The French Connection in Washington, D.C.: Context and Issues

The French Connection in Washington, D.C. Context and Issues g Isabelle Gournay I f an account of the French artistic presence in the United States is of little value without multiple references to the nation’s capital, a narrow focus on “Paris on the Potomac” would be equally sterile. This essay takes us on a journey through three periods when French ideas about urbanism, architecture, and public art helped transform many American cities. Each period was triggered by a spurt of artistic activity and creativity in France. The earliest phase spanned from approximately 1790 to 1820, when principles associated with classicism and the Enlightenment helped shape civic and commemorative designs for the young republic. The second period, from roughly 1855 to 1875, related to the popularity of the so-called Second Empire style. The last phase of French influence, which was tied to the popularity of studies at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts, reached its peak in the first decade of the twentieth century. In Washington, it began in earnest with the competition for the new Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1892 and lingered until World War II. As its protagonists were more numerous and its imprint most tangible, it is on this third era, and particularly on its architectural legacy, that this essay will focus. Aesthetic trends and principles ruling French art and architecture gained relevance and precedence in the United States when they answered aspirations of political leaders, members of the financial and intellectual elite, as well as architects and artists themselves . However, at their most successful, French-inspired artifacts from L’Enfant’s 1 plan to the brass espagnolettes opening floor-to-ceiling double windows in elegant homes do not simply represent the outcome of abstract historical forces. Instead, in the hands of talented individuals intimately familiar with French art and culture, they were adaptations to specific and unique requirements. Setting the stage for the Paris on the Potomac story calls for a multifaceted analysis. It requires one to analyze and summarize, for each of the three periods and for both countries, the general climate and particular aspirations presiding over the import of French ideas; to identify institutions, groups, and individuals who were instrumental in bringing these ideas, and to illustrate significant precedents for Washington’s Frenchinspired landmarks, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Last but not least, since other capital cities were also affected by French-inspired neoclassicism, Second Empire style, and Beaux-Arts ideals, it is also worth alluding to the international and cosmopolitan dimensions of these movements. Studying French connections in Washington carries three additional advantages. First, we can better comprehend this city’s complex and ambiguous status in terms of artistic leadership. Expectations that the U.S. capital would set national trends for public design, as happened with its plan, were met on many occasions. However, during the entire course of the nineteenth century, Washington was too small a city to exert cultural and artistic dominance. It did not have the educational and professional institutions, the critical mass of local practitioners and private patrons, which New York, Boston, or Philadelphia could rely on. It is only after 1910 that a Washingtonstyle civic art assumed national and even international prominence, but, again, essentially in the hands of men hailing from other parts of the country. The second peripheral benefit is not insignificant: exploring how French ideas were differently interpreted in 2 Isabelle Gournay Fig. 1. A panoramic photograph of Place de la Concorde, circa 1909. (Courtesy Library of Congress.) civic and residential commissions helps pinpoint similarities and differences between Washington’s public and private spheres. Finally, we can reestablish the significance of artworks and buildings that are no longer extant or are underrated. Around 1800 three sets of circumstances explain the popularity of French planning, art, and design. First was the military cooperation and intellectual kinship between the United States and its rescuer, France. L’Enfant, the brave soldier, and Thomas Jefferson , the astute diplomat, best exemplify this unusually close connection between the political and artistic lives of two separate countries. Second was the necessity in which the new republic found itself to seek foreign expertise in order to build its institutions and memorialize its revolution, as it had few well-educated artists and even fewer architects who could claim an academic training. Last was a worldwide exodus of Frenchmen, triggered by the...