www.quondam.com/13/1255.htm

Re: news from [Old] York
2003.07.24 22:35

...staying in Philadelphia, where, by the way, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway matches exactly the long axis of Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art at one end matching the Nymphaeum Neronis, Logan Circle at the middle of the Parkway matches Hadrian's Tomb, and the tiny intercourse building at the other end matches the location of the Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture at the entrance to JFK Plaza.

Since it's inception in the early 1920s, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was seriously considered a reenactment of the Champ Elysees from the Tuileries to the Arc de Triomphe. The Free Library and the Court House on Logan Circle even reenact the Palaces at the Place de la Concorde. I have never come across any reference comparing the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Piranesi's Campo Marzio, but, who knows, maybe the Champs Elysees was somehow inspired by Piranesi's plan.

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