The Completion of Washington, D.C., project, Washington, D.C., Plans

Leon Krier

1985

An ink-and-crayon-on-vellum proposal by Leon Krier that contrasts a car-dependent “Anti-City” with an alternative “Sixteen Cities within the City” masterplan for Washington, D.C., imagining compact, walkable, polycentric neighborhoods for the year 2000.

Bathed in a warm orange wash, the sheet reads like a hand-drawn map divided into two stacked schemes—above a sprawling, mono-centric plan in pale tones, below a vivid pattern of concentric red rings marking many compact urban centers—all set within a curled-scroll border that gives the drawing a manifesto-like authority.

This image crystallizes Krier’s critique of modernist, car-centered planning and helped popularize neotraditional ideas about polycentric, walkable urbanism that influenced later New Urbanism thinking.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural drawing Plan drawing Architecture Ink Maps, borders,and networks Urbanization Built environment

Exhibitions

Visionary Architecture

1960

The New City: Architecture and Urban Renewal

1967

Le Corbusier: Architectural Drawings

1978

Architectural Models from the Collection

1974