The world has been marveling for decades with the urbanism of Washington DC was actually admiring Aranjuez

To Washington DC, the capital of the most powerful nation on the planet, we have seen it in news, photographs, documentaries and films of all kinds and condition. It is not unreasonable to think that if there was a ‘top 10’ of the most represented cities in the world, the American would occupy a relevant place. However, despite that huge overexposure, one of its greatest architectural secrets has gone unnoticed until now: at least a key part of its urban planning is inspired by a Spanish town that does not reach the 63,000 inhabitants.

Which? Aranjuez.

Reviewing the story. That the Royal Site of Aranjuez and the US capital have a surprising (and suspicious) urban parallelism is known for some years. He discovered it before the pandemia a team of researchers from the University of Almería and the Polytechnic of Madrid. In his day the finding He had to speakbut it has now been, in 2025, when more interest has aroused.

The reason? With Washington DC under the Informative focus International for Donald Trump’s policies, it has been the US administration itself that He has recognized publicly those similarities between its capital and Aranjuez.

“Two cities, the same plane.” As an advance to 250º Anniversary From the declaration of independence, which will be held next year, the US embassy in Madrid published a few days ago A tweet in which the parallelism between the Madrid town and the city bathed by the waters of the Potomac River stands out.

“Washington DC shares its urban design with Aranjuez. Same 12 radio avenues, buildings disposal … even the meandro of the river. Two cities, the same plane”, claims The Madrid Embassy next to A link From the desqbre Foundation in which, once it is closed, a phrase can be read with a much more resounding tone: “The urbanism of Washington, a copy of Aranjuez’s.”

A ‘Eureka’ moment. To understand it, it is necessary to go back a few years ago, when a member of the team composed of researchers at the University of Alicante and the Polytechnic visited Washington. There he realized a curious detail: the streets, the avenues, the disposition of the buildings, the walks … reminded him of another place that the Spanish urbanists know well, Aranjuez.

Back to Spain he decided to delve into that heart and began an investigation that, years later, in January 2019, fruitful in An article Posted in academic magazine Urban Planning and Development.

“Surprising similarities”. The title of that rehearsal It was a declaration of intentions: “similarities between the urban plan of L´enfant for Washington DC and the Royal Site of Aranjuez, Spain.” In their pages, experts remember that the influence of Versailles on the plane drawn up in 1791 by Pierre C. L´enfant For the development of Washington it is “well known”, but much less are “the surprising similarities” between the American capital and “the form Urbis of the Royal Site of Aranjuez. “The authors admit that these parallels can be” simple coincidences “, but at least” ask questions. “

“It’s a copy of Aranjuez”. Much more resounding is The statement Posted on your day from the University of Almería to present the research. It points out that “Washington DC urbanism is a copy of Aranjuez.” “We discover, affirm and have managed to justify and publish that when the US capital is created, after the president George Washington, his design to Thomas Jefferson and this to the cartographer Pierre L´enfant, the city was based on the planes of Aranjuez,” ditch Francisco Manzano, one of the study authors.

What are they based on? In the cartographic study of both city. Researchers have proven that the arrangement of the main buildings, radial avenues and the street system is similar in both places. The University cites a clear example: Washington DC and the Royal Site of Aranjuez have in common a peculiar urban feature, the “diagram of two large rectangular spaces” arranged in the form of ‘L’ and at whose ends are, analogously, two emblematic buildings are located. In the case of the American city, The Capitol and the White House. In the Madrid town, the Royal Palace and the Church of San Antonio.

Do they have more in common? Yes. The identical position of these spaces in L with respect to the Potomac and Tajo rivers and the gutters that they start from. We also find correspondences between some Washington diagonal avenues with the Tagus Renaissance orchards walk system; Between the Plaza de la the Twelve Streets in Aranjuez and the 12 avenues that radiate from the Capitol “, Explain José Carlos de San Antonio Gómez, of the Polytechnic of Madrid.

Another parallelism is left by the trident of the garden of the parterre in Aranjuez and the one formed in the original plane by Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Maryland Avenue Sw and Avenue H. “of the analysis of the plans of both cities and of the circumstances in which they were made, surprising parallels are inferred,” Underline The expert.

Looking for the causes. Detected the points in common between both places there was such or even more complicated mission: explain them. What are you due to? Could the Washington DC urbanists inspire in the planes of the Royal Aranjuez site? Spanish researchers also address those unknowns.

The experts Remember that King Carlos III He sent copies from Aranjuez to Paris and the main European courts in the 1770 Pierre L´enfant. “There are no documents that prove to know him, but the evidence speaks for themselves,” they emphasize. There, in the Paris of the late eighteenth, He could see too The plane of the real site Thomas Jefferson.

Among the future architect of the development planning of Washington DC and the map of the Royal Site there is also another parallelism, an old (and long) friendship between the Spanish Manuel Salvador CarmonaAranjuez design recorder and artist Pierre L´enfant, father of the urban planner of the same name that years later received the commission of designing the city that would serve as a head of the US.

“Logic tells us …” “When the plane (from Aranjuez) arrives in Paris, L´enfant was a student of the academic Royale de Peinture et de Sculputure, of which his father was a member, the same as years before the Spanish was the Spanish MS Carmona, who recorded the plan of Aranjuez,” remember Cristina Velilla, of the Polytechnic.

“Logic tells us that the plane of a real site of a sister dynasty of the French, of extraordinary technical perfection and considerable dimensions, was admired by academics, also taking into account that it was recorded by Carmona, former academic and companion of the father of L´enfant 12 years.”

The great challenge. Establishing parallels and finding an explanation was only part of the challenges with which experts were found. Another, and not less, was to give visibility to what they had just discovered. Although today the US embassy Recognize That Washington DC “shares its urban design” with Aranjuez, in its day to the Spanish team it was not easy to find a speaker with which to share its theory that the powerful capital could be inspired by a Spanish town.

“We have always encountered editors from the city of Washington itself, which has been very hard. For its publication we have sent the article with another title as if it were a first approach to the urban design of Washington and then the editor itself has realized what we really wanted to say: that Washington looks like Aranjuez,” confessed Francisco Manzano in 2019. “We have not gone to the entry with this idea and it has been what has worked for us.”

Images | Harrison Mitchell (UNSPLASH), Wikipedia and UPM

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