Note 145 — Chapter IV · CITIES AND PEOPLES (A) THE SOUL OF THE CITY

Karlsruhe, with its fan-scheme, and Mannheim, with its rectangles, are earlier than Washington. But both are small places. The one is a sort of extension of the prince’s Rococo park and centred on his point de vue; the other, though its block-numbering, unique in Europe, seems to relate it to the American city, was really planned as a self-contained military capital, rectangular only within its oval enceinte, whereas the American rectangles are meant to be added to. The layout of Petersburg by Peter the Great (which has been adhered to to this day and is still incompletely filled in in detail) is a much more forcible example of the arbitrary planning of a megalopolis. Though outside the “European” world, it is of it, for it was the visible symbol of Peter’s will to force Europe upon Russia. It is contemporary with Mannheim and Karlsruhe (early eighteenth century), but its creator conceived of it as a city of the future.—Tr.