Section of proposed Anacostia river waterfront, in D.C. (Nir Buras)
I grew up in Washington, D.C., and probably gained my affection for classical architecture from its grand public spaces. I went off to college and upon my return found a striking new waterfront along the Potomac River, parallel to M Street and the C&O Canal, in Georgetown. It was exciting not because of but in spite of its architecture, which was a sort of postmodernist mash-up of various forms. But because Washington had for at least a century ignored its waterfronts, not just the Potomac but the Anacostia River, south of the U.S. Capitol and the Federal District, so just having a waterfront with popular restaurants and seating outdoors was a real pleasure for young and old in those heady disco days.
Just out is Robert Steuteville’s column on The Public Square, a blog curated by the Congress for the New Urbanism. He discusses three waterfront projects that have emerged over several decades in D.C., including the one in Georgetown, the only one I have visited. He concludes that they have “re-established Washington, D.C., as a waterfront city. The abundance, variety, easy access, and high quality of new public spaces within these developments have made the two rivers a destination and a welcomed addition to the many amenities in the nation’s capital.”
I have no dispute with that conclusion, but in terms of architecture, all three, predictably, are clunkers. Much preferable, and still possible along some lengths of the two rivers, would be a proposal by architect Nir Buras. He envisions a classically inspired waterfront along the Anacostia River, proposed in 2009, called MacMillan Two, after the MacMillan Plan that gave us D.C.’s National Mall in 1901. An in-depth look at the plan by Neil Flanagan for the website Greater Greater Washington is called “MacMillan Two envisions a classical Anacostia.”
The original plan for the Federeal City was drawn up by engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant for George Washington in 1791. Additional inspiration for Buras’s plan comes from France. Georges-Eugène Haussmann drew up the plan of Paris we know so well for Emperor Napoleon III between 1853 and 1870. Flanagan sums up the thinking behind MacMillan Two:
[W]e know what is beautiful and what works, and we should follow that. Downplaying strident formal innovation, the relationship buildings have to precedents in a cultural tradition guides design. For McMillan Two, France provides that tradition, particularly L’Enfant’s garden models and the Beaux-arts education of Burnham, McKim, and Olmsted. …
Most buildings would stand six to eight stories tall, with the last two minimized behind a sloped roof. Large tree-lined promenades … would pass throughout the reclaimed area, with particularly verdant ones running along the upper level of the embankment. Spaces created in the embankment promenades would house boat clubs, restaurants accessible from a lower-level embankment.
This plan is plenty ambitious. Buras envisions it as unrolling over a period of a century. Perhaps, as the three waterfront developments in Steuteville’s column become tired and decrepit, and as the one pushed by Nir Buras (who was born in Israel, is author of The Art of Classic Planning, and founded the D.C. chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art) becomes more popular, it might spread north along the Potomac’s embankments, jumpstarting a revival of Western civilization. What a thought! Start now!
Far fetched, maybe, but here’s hoping for a glorious riverine future in D.C. It has waited long enough.
Architecture Here and There 
Anacostia will never be a working waterfront again.
1: Draft of the river is too shallow to accept major shipping vessels that don’t have shallow drafts like river barges. Thou they can handle shipping containers; it requires stop off to load to major maritime sea vessels, thus a waste of time.
2: City real estate is too valuable to utilize for industrial purpose. Industry isn’t pretty, anyone whose ever driven to Baltimore, see the huge pile rocks, mountain high….for cement manufacture. Rusty rail cars, gravel and grass lunar landscape.
3: Urban land prices, have made industries like steel making, car production and machine part fabrication insoluable, at this point, electric power has replaced coal/coke so American industry doesn’t really pollute much anymore, and is also quieter, so factories/industry in suburbs are not only tolerable, but transportation makes them convenient.
4: The US has a super efficient freight rail system that can move trillions tons goods/commodities at extremely low labor cost. This puts us economic advantage in warehousing and goods distribution over EU and Asia. But permits equitable suburban warehouses which are more efficient then century brick warehouses like ones in Camden Yards.
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You cant fit an Arleigh burke destroyer, in Anacostia waterfront. With a draft of 31 feet, weight of 9800 tons, without a tug. Second, why when tugging such a vessel would make it horribly vulnerable. 1941, the Japanese conducted a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and sunk several warships that were moored pierside. You might think that incident caused the US Navy to build structures to protect ships in port, especially since most ships now cost over one billion dollars each. But nope….
Anyone in Hawaii can drive by and see what ships are in port and where they are located. Commandos from submarines, fishing boats, yachts, or private aircraft can pick out and attack targets easily. Of course enemy bombers can never attack Hawaii, which is what the Navy thought in 1941. Even a couple of guys with automatic rifles can cause millions of dollars in damage to modern ships from 1000 meters away. This same vulnerability exists at most US naval stations today, and is a great weakness in the US Navy.In past wars, many powerful ships have been sunk while tied up at naval bases. In future wars, they will prove far more vulnerable because worldwide communications allow agents to report shipping activity within seconds. Navy ships in the port of San Diego (left) are extremely vulnerable as they are located in a small bay and crowded urban area where dozens of unmonitored pleasure craft cruise about that could be used to attack billion-dollar warships.
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Your perception of the Anacostia River as a working waterfront is not incorrect, Anonymous. Rebuilding the monumental core along the Anacostia is indeed a bad idea. Leave it where it is. But the Anacostia need not remain (if it still remains) a working waterfront. If it is to become central to a revived greatness in Washington, it will need to rethink that concept. – David Brussat
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I know the Buras proposal, and it would re-make the nation’s capital as a great world city once again!
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Milton, it goes without saying (or rather, it does not apparently) that to make Washington a great world city once again would require the demolition of scores of modernist buildings that don’t add to its potential magnificence. – David Brussat
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Oh, btw, that last comment was mine, Milton W. Grenfell.
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Rebuilding a piece of Washington’s Monumental Core (including the Commerce Dept. Building and National Botanical Garden!) to the Anacostia River seems a questionable proposal to me. Historically the Anacostia bank was a working waterfront. Working waterfronts have an eclectic, rough and tumble architectural quality, which can be broad shouldered (i.e. Savannah, GA, Boston), but not formal and monumental.
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