Pierre Charles L'Enfant, b. Aug. 2, 1754, d. June 14, 1852, was the French architect and engineer responsible for the design of Washington, D.C. The plan of the city is based on principles employed by Andre Le Notre in the palace and garden of Versailles, where L'Enfant's father had worked as a court painter, and on Domenico Fontana's scheme (1585) for the replanning of Rome under Pope Sixtus V. Through the use of long avenues joined at key points marked by important buildings or monuments, the city is a symbolic representation of power radiating from a central source.
On his arrival in America in 1777, L'Enfant joined the Revolutionary army as a volunteer during the War of Independence, and attained the rank (1783) of major of engineers. When Congress decided (1791) to build a capital city on the Potomac, George Washington asked L'Enfant to prepare a design but dismissed him in the following year because of his insistence on complete control of the project. L'Enfant also designed the old City Hall in New York (c.1787) and the town house of the financier Robert Morris in Philadelphia (begun 1793; demolished).
Although he died penniless and alone he was reinterred in Arlington National Cemetery, after his plan for the city was readopted and his immortal contribution to this most unique capital city fully recognized.
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