New York and high density cities are no longer jarring. I’ve become accustomed to buildings sitting upon the lap of their neighbors and sightlines interrupted only by intersections. While you may argue all architecture is terribly diverse and everything should be appreciated, I’m here to tell you that in my mind, when skyscraper sits adjacent to skyscraper, structure seems to run together. When everything is so similar, especially in big cities, the beauty of anomaly and sense of rarity are lost. I cease to be awed.
That stated, there are structures which never cease to impact my psyche, and a good number of these buildings are in Washington D.C. Rather than height, I am struck by pure mass. These buildings seem forceful, impenetrable, dwarfing. The harshness of the Lincoln Center consistently detracts my eyes from the roadway; I turn into a toddler at the Lincoln Memorial, my body an insignificant speck next to the mass of the building. Call it ugly, call it beautiful, but the monuments erected in our nations capital are undeniably powerful.
In Washington, I feel this superhuman building scale represents that unshakeable power, which right or wrong, our country convinces us to be true. I would imagine many of us think of landmarks in D.C. and conjure up the White House, the Capital Building, and the National Mall. However after a bit of inquiry, I learned there aren’t many D.C. residents who consider these their landmarks. You don’t often hear people say they live near the Lincoln memorial because, in essence, nobody does live near the Lincoln memorial. Most of the city’s most famous structures are built in areas where people visit, but few reside. This lack of personalization causes these buildings to remain somewhat untouchable, unconquerable, and generalizable. It may be this separation between landmark and personal identification, which causes these structures to remain so big.
In the world of planning and architecture, we speak about the concept of an iconic landmark, a space or structure which denotes a sense of place and identity in addition to a geographical location. The landmark can elicit a sense of history or intangible characteristic, and is often recognizable to an outsider, relative to an individual, and carries on its back a connotation or implication. I live near the Natty Boh’ tower in Baltimore. Lit up red in the evenings and winking his blessings to the homes below, this landmark is my north star.
There are individuals on the other side of town who may use City Hall as their icon, or Lexington market. All landmarks have history and memory, and for better or worse, these structures are representative of the greater neighborhood. Landmarks like Memorial Stadium or Baltimore Cemetery bring with them an affiliation of poverty and crime. Especially in Baltimore, where neighborhoods are so distinctly defined, people need nothing more than a landmark to paint the greater demographic picture of the area. If I were to mention Hollins Market, Cross Street Market, or Federal Hill, you’ve just envisioned the neighborhood. The types of people who live there, what color they might be, how much money they have, and how frequently crime occurs. Your accuracy is irrelevant; the point is that you’ve immediately identified structure with status.
I find that in D.C., landmarks like the White House or The Capital Building seem to elude internalization. Contrary to Baltimore, where demographics are affiliated directly with buildings, D.C. exhibits a disconnect between structure and surrounding. With the exception of the Capitol building, monumental structures are primarily divided from personality. Regardless of who sleeps in the West Wing, the White House will remain unchanged. The Jefferson Memorial won’t mean anything different to me than it did four, eight, or twelve years ago. In the world of these structures, demographics don’t really seem to matter.
Perhaps because of this, the nations capital remains a place for anyone; generalized structure doesn’t attract a certain demographic, nor does it repel. These buildings remain large and cold because we are unable to quantify them with soft data. Not only are they inhuman in scale, they are unable to be qualified through human factors or affiliated with a united group of faces. These buildings perpetuate the transience that seems to embody the city – perhaps attracting the masses and excluding no one is, after all, the purpose of architecture essentially created for a population of over 300 million people. While DC monuments may be icons and landmarks, they aren’t places of personal affiliation. We see them, we take a photo, and then we walk on.
