North Lawn of the White House
The North Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC borders Pennsylvania Avenue to the north and has a good view of the White House . To the east it is shielded from East Executive Drive and the United States Treasury Department by dense plantings . To the west it borders on West Executive Drive and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building .
Description and use
A semicircular driveway leads from the Northwest Gate to the North Portal and through the Northeast Gate back to Pennsylvania Avenue. A circular basin with a fountain is centrally located in front of the north portal of the Weißens Haus.
Heads of state enter the White House grounds here and are officially received here before a state dinner. The public tours starting on East Executive Drive exit the building through the north portal and visitors exit the premises through the northeast gate.
TV correspondents often stand on the north lawn when recording the reports and use the north portal as a background.
For the inauguration of the president, a grandstand will be built on the north lawn. The President uses the locked area to watch the parade from the Capitol.
Design and horticulture
The plan of the city of Washington, drawn up by Pierre-Charles L'Enfant in 1793, placed the White House opposite the streets converging on the north lawn. In 1850 the landscape designer Andrew Jackson Davis softened the geometry of L'Enfant's plan.
In the mid-19th century, a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson was placed in the center of the lawn. This was replaced in 1871 by a water basin with a steam-driven fountain. During the remainder of the 19th century, the north lawn was planted with increasingly lavish seasonal "carpet-like" flower beds, accentuated by tropical plants from the White House greenhouses.
Theodore Roosevelt , who hired McKim, Mead, and White architects to remodel and extend parts of the White House, was persuaded to simplify the grounds and remove what was increasingly viewed as Victorian clutter. The planting scheme for the north lawn has been greatly simplified. In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt hired Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to assess the outdoor facilities and suggest changes. Olmsted saw the need to offer the President and his family as much privacy as possible without unnecessarily restricting the view of the White House. The Olmsted plan shows the landscape predominantly as it is today: large model trees and bushes were preserved or replanted to restrict the view of the private area, but a generous view of the building from the north and south was created.
Pattern trees
The trees on the north lawn include:
- European beech
- American elms
- Quercus alba
- Tulip magnolia
- Red maples
- American and English boxwood species
Seasonal plantings
The basin with the fountain is framed by seasonally changing plants.
- in springtime, tulips lined with Armenian grape hyacinths
- red pelargoniums in summer
- chrysanthemums in autumn
credentials
- ^ Seale, William .: The White House Garden. . White House Historical Association, 1996, ISBN 0-912308-69-9 , pp. 22-23.
- ^ Seale, William .: The White House Garden. . White House Historical Association, 1996, ISBN 0-912308-69-9 , pp. 101-102.
- ^ Seale, William .: The White House Garden. . White House Historical Association, 1996, ISBN 0-912308-69-9 , pp. 54-55.
- ^ McEwan, Barbara .: White House Landscapes. . Walker and Company, 1992, ISBN 0-98027-1192-8 , pp. 151, 162.
- ^ McEwan, Barbara .: White House Landscapes. . Walker and Company, 1992, ISBN 0-98027-1192-8 , pp. 181-183.
- ^ McEwan, Barbara .: White House Landscapes. . Walker and Company, 1992, ISBN 0-98027-1192-8 , pp. 107.
- ^ Seale, William .: The White House Garden. . White House Historical Association, 1996, ISBN 0-912308-69-9 , pp. 92-93.
- ^ Seale, William .: The White House Garden. . White House Historical Association, 1996, ISBN 0-912308-69-9 , pp. 104-109.
Web links
Coordinates: 38 ° 53 '53.9 " N , 77 ° 2' 11.8" W.