Chosen somewhat arbitrarily by George Washington as the site for the seat of a new government, Washington D.C. was planned in the Baroque style by Pierre L’Enfant. One hundred years later, this European model for a capital city was upheld by the McMillan Commission, a group of America’s great designers and planners of the time—Frederick Law Olmstead and Daniel Burnham, among them. From the very beginning the symbolic aspect of the city’s many monuments and civic buildings were as (if not more) important than the city’s actual function. Today Washington D.C. is an important tourist destination—a sort of cartoon of the quintessential American experience.