In 1748, Giovanni Battista Nolli finished a 12-year

In 1748, Giovanni Battista Nolli finished a 12-year project creating a vertical projection plan of Rome. The two-dimensional plan showed all areas accessible to the public — streets, piazzas, courtyards, interiors of cathedrals and other public buildings — as white. Private building spaces are shown in black. Very legible and functional in a scientific sense, the Nolli plan helped to bring about a better, more precise understanding of the relationship between the public and private realm, according to Dhiru Thadani, architect with Thadani Hetzel Partnership in Washington, D.C. Thadani Hetzel Partnership has partly completed a “Nolli plan” for a 7.5 square mile area of the nation’s capital, which comprises the area laid out in the 1791 L’Enfant plan. The monumental effort began 15 years ago, with the intent to publish the work in the form of 18 panels, each 15 inches wide by 20 inches high. To date, base maps (a portion is shown here) are complete for the entire area. More detailed individual building maps have been created for 250 blocks, and these will be superimposed on the base maps. The effort bogged down in recent years due to lack of time and money, but Thadani says that the drawings are “incredibly useful” to the firm in evaluating new buildings designed in the city. “It’s such a quick, easy, way to know whether the space is too big, or just right.” In recent years, the Thadani Hetzel Partnership began a similar project in Bombay, India. Thadani hired two architects out of school and had them both work for more than a year to create the Nolli plan for Bombay. The firm has an office, and has been hired to design new towns, in India.