page

1
MALL
ENTRANCE CONSTITUTION AVE
WELCOME DESK MUSEUM STORE
ENTRANCE
STREET LEVEL

CONTEMPLATIVE
COURT
SWEET HOME CAFÉ ENTRANCE TO
THEATER HISTORY GALLERIES

L1 HERITAGE HALL CONSTITUTION AVE

ENTRANCE

GRAND
STAIRCASE

LOCKERS
ELEVATORS
STAIRS

CORONA
WELCOME PAVILION
ESCALATORS
DESK

MUSEUM
STORE

MALL
ENTRANCE

C CONCOURSE CONTEMPLATIVE
COURT

EXIT
HISTORY
GALLERIES

ENTRANCE
TO HISTORY GRAND
GALLERIES
STAIRCASE
ESCALATORS

SWEET
EXHIBITION
CHANGING

HOME
GALLERY

ELEVATORS
CAFÉ
STAIRS

OPRAH
WINFREY
THEATER CAFÉ
SEATING

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HISTORY GALLERIES 2
A CHANGING AMERICA:
C1 1968 AND BEYOND
EVENTS
OF ‘68
EXHIBITION CONTINUES
UP THE RAMP

REFLECTIONS
DECADES
THEATER

DEFENDING FREEDOM, DEFINING FREEDOM:

C2 THE ERA OF SEGREGATION 1876 – 1968

SEGREGATED RAILCAR FREEDOM

HOUSE EXHIBITION CONTINUES
UP THE RAMP
GUARD
TOWER REFLECTIONS
INTERACTIVE
THEATER LUNCH COUNTER
THE THEATER
JIM CROW
ERA
EMMETT
TILL THE MODERN
MEMORIAL CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT THE GREAT
MIGRATION

SLAVERY AND FREEDOM

C3 1400 – 1877
EXHIBITION CONTINUES
UP THE RAMP
KING
COTTON REFLECTIONS
DOMESTIC
PARADOX OF SLAVE TRADE THEATER
LIBERTY

THE
REVOLUTIONARY TRANSATLANTIC
WAR SLAVE TRADE
THE CIVIL WAR

ELEVATOR FROM
CONCOURSE
LEVEL

STAIRS

ELEVATOR FROM
CONCOURSE LEVEL AND
LEVELS ABOVE

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CULTURE and COMMUNITY GALLERIES 3

MUSICAL
CROSSROADS
CULTURE
L4 GALLERIES
TAKING
THE
VISUAL CULTURAL STAGE
ARTS EXPRESSIONS

ELEVATORS

STAIRS

ESCALATORS

MAKING A WAY OUT OF NO WAY

COMMUNITY
L3 GALLERIES POWER
SPORTS OF DOUBLE
LEVELING
PLACE VICTORY:
THE
OUT OF NO WAY

THE AFRICAN
PLAYING AMERICAN
FIELD MILITARY

MAKING A WAY
ELEVATORS

STAIRS

ESCALATORS

LIBRARY
(BY APPOINMENT ONLY)

EXPLORE
L2
CLASSROOMS

MORE! INTERACTIVE EXPLORE

GALLERY YOUR
INTERACTIVE FAMILY
HISTORY
GALLERY
MEDIA
ARTS
ELEVATORS
ESCALATORS

STAIRS

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 Museums
1791 to 1850 1850 to 1900 1900 to 1950 1950 to 2000 2000 to present

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
The White U.S. Old Canal Smithsonian Sidney R. Smithsonian Washington Jamie L. National Lincoln Freer District of U.S. National Thomas National Hirshhorn National National Vietnam Arthur M. National Enid A. S. Dillon U.S. Korean War Franklin National National World Martin National
House Capitol Lockkeeper’s “Castle” Yates Arts and Monument Whitten Museum Memorial Gallery Columbia Botanic Gallery of Jefferson Museum of Museum Air and Gallery of Veterans Sackler Museum of Haupt Ripley Holocaust Veterans Delano Gallery Museum War II Luther Museum of
1800 1829 House 1855 Federal Industries 1884 Federal of Natural 1922 of Art War Garden Art West Memorial American and Space Art East Memorial Gallery African Art Garden Center Memorial Memorial Roosevelt of Art of the Memorial King Jr. African
(Year (Year it was 1833 Building Building (Construction Building History 1923 Memorial 1933 Building 1943 History Sculpture Museum Building 1982 1987 1987 1987 1987 Museum 1995 Memorial Sculpture American 2004 Memorial American
President originally 1880 1881 began 1908 1910 1931 1941 1964 Garden 1976 1978 1993 1997 Garden Indian 2011 History and
Adams considered in 1848.) 1974 1999 2004 Culture
moved in.) finished.) 2016

Three-tiered
corona

200-YEAR
Newest addition
The National Museum of African American History and Culture
doesn’t look like anything else on the Mall.

transformation
Nearly every design detail was inspired by something in African Porch
American culture, from its external latticework “corona” that is (main entrance)
Kennedy
Center shaped like Yoruban wood carvings to the shaded entrance porch
that is meant to evoke family gathering and storytelling spots.

from MARSH to MALL The centerpiece of the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial,
finished in 1982, is not a
soaring building but a solemn,
The iconic Reflecting Pool
was constructed in 1922.
When viewed at certain
angles, the pool reflects
The Old Canal Lockkeeper’s
House was built along the
Washington City Canal,
which ran through the Mall
When builders were excavating the site, they found gate pieces
from the old canal that crossed the area in the 19th century.

sunken, black marble wall images of the Lincoln in the 1800s and linked to
Lafayette
Theodore that lists more than 58,000 Memorial or the the Chesapeake and Ohio Park
BY A ARON STECKELBERG, PHILIP KENNICOTT A ND BONNIE BERKOWITZ Roosevelt names of those who died. Washington Monument. Canal. President
Memorial Washington hoped the 1
Bridge District would be a major
port, but it was not to
be. The city canal was

The Mall as it is today Looking to the future

The Washington Monument
filled in in the 1870s.
was built near the spot where
CON L’Enfant had envisioned a statue In 2003, in response to concerns that the Mall was becoming overstuffed with
Cab STIT
The original idea for the Joh in Bet U TION of Washington on a horse. But buildings and monuments, Congress declared that it was “a substantially completed
n hes AVE
da 95 Bel 20 NUE the soil wasn’t stable enough work of civic art.” But advocates of new memorials and museums still covet a spot
Mall — a grand, tree-lined MAR 495
tsv
ille for the giant obelisk, so it was on the nation’s most symbolically powerful open space. A new visitors center for
Y L 10 relocated well east and slightly
avenue flanked by imposing 66
495
WAS
AND the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is coming, and the Smithsonian plans to radically
HIN south of the third point of reconfigure its south Mall campus. Pressure could build to place a planned Latin
buildings — goes back to 50 G
D.C TON L’Enfant’s triangle — an American museum on the Mall as well.
W . Lan Ellipse
the very origins of the ASH ham imperfection that has vexed

ET
Ann VIRG I N 3 city planners ever since.
I G

RE
and NIA T 50 Arlington
capital city, Pierre ale 395 MO
AP
NDETAI Constitution

ST
Memorial
L Gardens
L’Enfant’s plan conceived

TH
Bridge

17
for George Washington. But 95 Ale
xan N 495 26
dria

T
in Washington, plans rarely go IND

E
495 30

RE
95 5 MILES EPE 7 Shops and a financial The Capitol and the
1 And NDE 32

ST
as planned, so the Mall has been For rews
ce A
NCE
12 district sprouted along White House were the

TH
Bas ir AVE
e NUE Pennsylvania Avenue, but District’s first major
a work in progress for more
For than 200 years.

15
31 16
Bel t in the late 1800s and into public buildings, and
voi
At times, in the 19th century, r it was a free-for-all of mixed uses, and far
the 1900s it became a both would need to
West Potomac PE
from a civic showplace. Later, it hosted elegant parks, a market and a Park NN tawdry eyesore lined with be rebuilt after the
9 SY tattoo parlors and cheap British burned the
train station. In the 20th century, it was cleared — though this took a LV
AN hotels. city in 1814.
IA
long time — to make the space we know now. But today, there are fears AV
28 EN
5 UE
that it has become too full, dilapidated, and needs more care, more The Martin Luther In 1912, the first 3,020
8
money, better governance and perhaps a new plan for a new century. King Jr. Memorial was of Washington’s cherry 14
dedicated on Aug. 28, trees arrived from Japan 24
25 11 4
2011, the 48th and were planted in and Cherry 19
anniversary of the around the Mall after a Blossoms
27
March on Washington previous batch of unhealthy 6
for Jobs and Freedom ones had to be destroyed. The Mall
17 Union
Defining the Mall and his “I Have a Station
Dream” speech. 21 Plaza
The Mall is a loose term for the public lands around and between the Lincoln Memorial 22 18
and the Capitol. Here are three different ways the National Park Service defines the area. Tidal 23
15 Basin
29 Capitol 2
The Franklin Reflecting
Delano Roosevelt Pool
Potomac Memorial is a series George Mason
Ri ver of open, granite Memorial 13
rooms representing Capitol
themes from his four Visitor
terms in office. Center

“The Mall” “The National Mall” “Reserve” 14th Street The imposing, red-brick The curved limestone
Bridge
Generally considered Includes the Lincoln and Also includes the Army Medical Museum and facade of the National
the green space Jefferson memorials, the White House and Library building stood here Museum of the American
between the Washington Washington Monument the Capitol building. from the 1880s until 1969, Indian is meant to evoke The U.S. Botanic
Monument and the as well as the “Mall” when it was razed to make wind-swept rock formations, Garden dates to
Capitol building. green space. Washingto n way for the Hirshhorn part of the natural world the 1820s but
Chann el Museum and Sculpture that is so prominent in moved to its current
Garden. Native American culture. location in 1933.

How the area evolved

How the area looked before 1800 ... in 1800 ... in 1860 ... in 1900 ... in 1940

Native Americans hunted and gathered Pennsylvania Avenue, named by Political squabbling halted Railroad tracks ran in and out of a station, “Temporary” war buildings lasted
food from the estuary area around Tiber Thomas Jefferson in 1791, would become construction of the Washington which sat where the National Gallery of Art until 1971, when they were razed to
Creek, which was also called Goose or Washington’s first downtown street. L’Enfant Monument in 1858. For decades, West Building is now. make way for Constitution Gardens.
Original Tuber Creek. intended it to connect the Capitol to the it was merely a stump.
shoreline White House.
President’s Palace
(White House)

PE Lincoln
NN West Potomac
SY Park Memorial
LV Can
Tibe r Cree k AN al
Future site of IA Washington
AV
the Washington EN Monument Smithsonian Tidal
Monument UE Congress House Jefferson
Castle Bas in
Current (north wing of future Memorial
shoreline Capitol building)

Current Mall
footprint L’Enfant chose to put the
Capitol building on Jenkins Hill, Construction on the
which he called “a pedestal Smithsonian Castle began In the late 1800s, a dredging Builders moved a sea wall and filled
waiting for a monument.” in 1847, a year after the project created land that in land to align the Jefferson Memorial
President Washington laid Smithsonian Institution would become West with the White House. The unstable
the cornerstone in 1793. was established. Potomac Park. ground has been a problem ever since.

Before the capital city
In the beginning, before Washington had been designated the nation’s capital,
much of the Mall was an empty lowland along the Potomac, made yet marshier
by the Tiber Creek, which flowed into the river not far from where the
Washington Monument stands today. In the early 17th century, the most likely
inhabitants of the land were members of the Nacotchtank tribe, but the incursion
of European settlers into the area greatly depleted them. At the time Washington
was chosen as the capital, and for long after, the whole area was prone to
flooding, and was mainly used for grazing.
L’Enfant creates a plan (1791-1860)
The idea for the Mall came from L’Enfant, a French engineer commissioned
by President Washington in 1791 to develop a plan for the country’s seat of
government. L’Enfant imagined something more like a grand, tree-lined
avenue, flanked by embassies and gardens. He also envisioned a canal
running along its north side, crossing south in front of the Capitol,
connecting to the Anacostia River. Few of the details of L’Enfant’s plan were
realized, although the canal was finished by 1815, making much of this part
of the city an island.
A war brings clarity (1860-1900)
Through much of the 19th century, the city’s canal was effectively a sewer, and
the Mall was a chaotic hodgepodge. Its first major building, the Smithsonian
“Castle,” was a Romanesque pastiche style design, and for a while, it seemed
as if the architecture of the city and the Mall might lean toward brick, color,
and Northern European styles. The Civil War transformed Washington from a
muddy group of villages to a bustling national center. The Mall became a more
established space, though it lacked the open, axial clarity L’Enfant had
originally planned.
A new direction (1900-1940)
In 1902, a Senate commission issued the McMillan Plan, which reimagined the
Mall as the centerpiece of a larger, grander federal district. The Mall was conceived
as a symbolic memorial to the Civil War and reconciliation, with the Lincoln
Memorial at one end, a memorial to Grant at the Capitol and Arlington Memorial
Bridge linking the North to the South. The plan got rid of gardens, trees, old
buildings and railroad tracks and extended the vast esplanade to the west. In the
following decades, the major classical-inflected federal buildings we know today
were built, and the east end of the Mall emerged as a center for cultural buildings.
The modern Mall arises (1940-present)
Not everything in the McMillan Plan came to pass. The postwar decades
became a period of increasingly contentious argument about the design,
meaning and purpose of the Mall. Maya Lin’s evocative-but-radical design
for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial sparked furious debate and eventually
changed the meaning of the Mall and memorialization. The grand,
celebratory and mainly classical style was no longer the reflexive
architectural response, though it would recur in the design of the National
World War II Memorial in the new century.

Sources: “AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C.” by G. Martin Moeller Jr.; “Monument Wars,” by Kirk Savage; “Washington through Two Centuries: A History in Maps and Images,” by Joseph R. Passonneau; Architect of the Capitol; National Gallery of Art; National Park Service; U.S. Forest Service; Smithsonian Institution archives; individual museum websites