Future of the National Mall: Symposium; Lecture

The National Park Service is hosting a one-day symposium to kick off national dialogue in determining the future use, appearance, and landcape of the National Mall:

November 15, 2006
9 am - 5 pm
Naval Heritage Center, 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

A related website on the Symposium, its agenda, and public participation opportunities will go live after November 1st.

2. Also, the local chapter (Latrobe) of the Society of Architectural Historians is sponsoring a related lecture the night before:

Tuesday, November 14
The Washington National Mall
Lecture by Peter Penczer, Independent Scholar
6:30 P.M. – reception; 7:00 P.M. – lecture
The American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Avenue, N.W., boardroom, 2nd floor
$10.00 for Latrobe Chapter members and full-time students (with ID), $17.00 for non-members.

Peter Penczer introduces his book, The Washington National Mall, the first general history of one of America’s most important urban parks. Penczer will trace the history of the Mall in a lecture illustrated with more than 100 photographs, most never before published. The book, self-published in full color, is due in spring 2007. The lecture will focus on the Mall’s three lives. For most of the nineteenth century, it was little more than a pasture. Then, in the 1870s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the landscaping in a naturalistic style inspired by Andrew Jackson Downing’s 1851 plan for the Mall. For sixty years the Mall was filled with ornate Victorian buildings, winding paths, and heavy vegetation. That was swept aside in the 1930s in favor of the classical landscaping envisioned by the McMillan Plan of 1902. Penczer is also the author of Washington, D.C., Past and Present.

Reservations are not required. For general information about the event, please contact Andrew Drabkin at 202-277-7106.

3. Of course, the National Coalition to Save the Mall is another resource for this topic.
Image of a new National Mall, extended south from the U.S. Capitol.

This vision has been suggested by the Legacy Plan produced in the late 1990s by the National Capital Planning Commission, and is being promoted by the Coalition through their "Third Century Initiative."
AP photo by Nick Wass.

Index Keywords: National-Mall