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The St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, a 300-acre National Historic Landmark, is defined by approximately 60 buildings, their supporting landscapes, landmarked view corridors, and its pivotal role in the evolution of the humane treatment of the mentally ill in the United States from 1850 to the present. Abandoned and in varying states of deterioration, the site required protection and a viable plan for adaptive reuse of the historic resources. Robinson & Associates worked as part of an interdisciplinary team to plan rehabilitation of historic buildings and new development on the site. Specifically charged with evaluating and guiding the preservation of St. Elizabeths’ historic landscape – which included therapeutic, agricultural, ornamental, and service components, as well as a Civil War cemetery – Robinson & Associates provided information on historic resources for the design team, presented a landscape assessment to review agencies and consulting parties in public meetings, and assessed the impact of proposed construction on the campus.
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Serving as architectural historians on a team of architects, landscape architects, and planning and traffic consultants, Robinson & Associates worked to develop a master plan for Judiciary Square, one of the original public reservations in Washington dating from the 1791 plan for the city by Pierre Charles L’Enfant. Robinson & Associates’ contribution to the team’s report included a narrative outlining Judiciary Square’s historic context, discussing 90 historic resources, and identifying the master plan’s objectives relative to those resources. Robinson & Associates also evaluated the impact of proposed landscape and parking plans on historic resources and documented and evaluated Section 106 compliance. These findings were presented to the National Capital Planning Commission, and Robinson & Associates participated in public meetings to disseminate information on the master plan study.
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The plan of the City of Washington is the United States’ foremost example of two nationally significant city plans, incorporating Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan and the 1901-02 Senate Park (McMillan) Commission Plan. With funding from the National Park Service and the D.C. Preservation League, Robinson & Associates amended the original 1994 National Register and D.C. landmark nominations for the L’Enfant Plan to represent the national significance of the combination of the L’Enfant and the McMillan Commission plans, focusing on their effect on the District of Columbia’s development during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. The project involved extensive on-site surveys, photographic documentation, review and clarification of the original National Register nomination, preparation of determinations of eligibility for unresolved areas, and presentation of the results of the investigation and nomination to the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office. Additionally, Robinson & Associates prepared the nomination to National Historic Landmark standards by clarifying the contributing/noncontributing status of the resources, adding elements from the McMillan Plan, and augmenting the statement of significance for the resources.
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