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For the National Park Service, Robinson & Associates was charged with revising the existing 1972 National Register nomination for East and West Potomac Parks, an area which includes a large portion of Washington’s monumental core and significant historic properties such as the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool, and the Tidal Basin. Robinson & Associates revised the nomination to current National Register documentation standards, which required evaluating major national monuments and memorials less than 50 years of age, as well as historic landscapes. The resulting, amended nomination included documentation of recent monuments such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the 56 Signers Memorial, and landscape features such as Constitution Gardens and the American elm trees flanking the Reflecting Pool.
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Robinson & Associates served as historians for this comprehensive planning project for the Smithsonian’s National Mall site. The master plan analyzed existing conditions relating to site improvements and landscape, and developed design guidelines and implementation plans for exterior elements. In preparation, Robinson & Associates researched and documented the landscape history of the National Mall and the Smithsonian buildings, drawing heavily on an examination of the 1791 L’Enfant Plan, Andrew Jackson Downing’s 1851 Plan for the Mall, and the 1901 McMillan Commission Plan. Comparison of these plans provided a historic context for Mall planning and landscaping, and was a starting point for the team’s analysis. Robinson & Associates coordinated with the National Capital Planning Commission to establish compliance with preservation legislation and guidelines, and definitions of significant site elements.
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The 1849 Petersen House, known as the “House Where Lincoln Died,” became one of the first house museums to be purchased and operated by the federal government as a result of its historical association with Lincoln’s death in 1865 following his fatal injury at Ford’s Theatre across the street. On a team headed by historical architects, Robinson & Associates prepared a Historic Structure Report to inform managerial decisions for the care of the Petersen House’s physical property, while considering the visitor’s experience. This undertaking involved archival research at local and national repositories, review of existing documentation, historic photograph and map analysis, and site visits that resulted in scholarly documentation of the house’s development, concentrating on its main character-defining features, spaces, and elements. A historical background, chronology, description, architectural inventory, and identification of preservation zones comprised Robinson & Associates’ historical sections of the report.
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