Andrew Jackson Downing creates a landscape plan for the Mall
Item
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Title
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Andrew Jackson Downing creates a landscape plan for the Mall
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Date
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1850
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Description
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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.
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Source
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Smithsonian Institution Archive. View original.
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Coverage
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1830-1859
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Event Type
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Planning and Design
