Product Description

"Washington Through Two Centuries" presents a comprehensive history of the city, recording its changing character and suggesting future developments. Author Joseph Passonneau has devoted twenty-five years to preparing a suite of detailed maps that show the center of the city, building by building, in 1800, 1860, 1900, 1940, 1970, and 2000. The maps, presented as foldout pages, offer an exceptional graphic history of the capital's transformation. The volume is also illustrated with a great number of archival photographs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174369 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-17
• Released on: 2004-06-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781580930918
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
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About the Author
Joseph R. Passonneau is an architect and civil engineer in Washington, D.C. His firm, Joseph Passonneau & Partners, has completed some of the most politically and technically difficult transportation projects in the United States, and he has received numerous awards for transportation engineering and urbanism. He was the dean of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis and has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Princeton University, and the Universities of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Southern California.

Customer Reviews

A Great Book for Architects and Planners
Joe Passonneau has combined history, planning and architecture in our nation's capitol that has a certain relevance to every serious, large city in the country. What you really learn here is how architecture and planning can work together in a creative relaltionshiip and both better for the experience. If the elected officials were crafting laws with the same care, concern and perhaps even love, that architects, planners and a host of other insightful non-professionals were using to build Washington, DC, we would all be better off today.

The maps alone are glorious and probably worth the price of the book itself. Study them and you will start to understand and appreciate the historic process by which cities either reinvent themselves or fail to do so. Architects, planners and history buffs should own this book. Period.

Fabulous Planning History
Mr. Passonneau's book on Washington successfully covers the planning history of this country's capitol city, and essentially uses it as an illustration of how planning can guide development of a city on many levels. The maps in this book are the culmination of a thirty year project which, because it involved historically accurate hand drawings of the facades of all of the buildings in the covered area, is certain never to be undertaken again. Thus this book is not only extremely informative and interesting from historical, social and political perspectives, it is in itself a beautiful work of art, a feast for the eyes.

Stunning
I've been looking for maps that depict DC through the years. I live in SouthWest DC in one of the few new buildings that obviously took the place of many things that were here before. This book has been so helpful in showing the development of DC through the years. Between maps I've never seen before, plans and photos, this is a must have for anyone who wants to see the changes in DC in the past two hundred years.