L'Enfant Plaza

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For the Washington Metro station, see L'Enfant Plaza (Washington Metro)

L'Enfant Plaza is a complex of eight commercial and governmental buildings, as well as an underground shopping mall and Metro station, built along a traffic-and-pedestrian promenade in Southwest Washington, D.C.. It is named for Pierre L'Enfant, the architect and planner who designed the street layout of the capital city. It was dedicated in 1968 and remains the only paved public square in Washington. The plaza is located off of Independence Avenue SW, between 12th and 9th Streets--although 9th Street actually runs underneath the centers of the buildings on the easternmost side of the plaza.

L'Enfant Promenade, the main street on which the plaza is centered, ends at a large rotary and public overlook called Banneker Park (named for Benjamin Banneker, an 18th-century free black man who was an important surveyor of the city and early activist for black Amercians). Banneker Park was designed by Daniel Urban Kiley and dedicated in 1970. It was the first public space in Washington to be dedicated to an African American.

As initially planned, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would have stood at the end of L'Enfant Promenade where Banneker Circle currently stands. The Kennedy Center would then be the anchor for the development of a retail corridor along L'Enfant Promenade. However, the project's main developer, William Zeckendorf, filed for bankruptcy during the construction of the plaza, forcing the Kennedy Center's sponsors to find a new location. (They ultimately found a site in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, although the abrupt relocation delayed its planned opening by three years.)

The buildings in L'Enfant Plaza are in the brutalist style of modern architecture. Many of them, including the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, were designed by I.M. Pei.

On the east side of the promenade, in front of the hotel, is a large public garden.

Banneker Overlook was discussed at one time as the site of the Smithsonian Institution's new National Museum of African American History. Instead, the museum will be built on the National Mall.

As of 2006, L'Enfant Plaza is the planned site for the new home of the National Children's Museum. The museum's offices are located in commercial rental space within the plaza until such time as the building is complete. Also, a formal memorial to Benjamin Banneker has been planned for Banneker Overlook; it is currently in the design phase.