This photograph taken on April 21, 1962 by Robert L. Knudsen depicts aerial views of Washington, D. C., showing parts of the city during the John F. Kennedy administration. At the time, Washington Monument was separated from the Lincoln Memorial by the “tempos” —temporary buildings—erected during World War II. The foreground features the Smithsonian Institution's Castle, Arts and Industries Building, National Museum of Natural History, and the construction site of the Museum of History and Technology, which was renamed the National Museum of American History in 1980.

This photograph taken on April 21, 1962, by Robert L. Knudsen depicts aerial views of Washington, D. C. showing parts of the city during the John F. Kennedy administration. The White House is visible toward the upper right corner of the picture. The foreground features the Smithsonian Institution's Castle, Arts and Industries Building, National Museum of Natural History, and the construction site of the Museum of History and Technology, which was renamed the National Museum of American History in 1980.

This plan for the design of the National Mall was created by architects Daniel H. Burnham and Charles F. McKim, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1901 during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. The Senate Park Commission undertook a project to design and redevelop the National Mall, eventually publishing the 1902 McMillan Plan, named for James McMillan, the Michigan senator who headed the commission. The McMillan Plan called for the construction of a Mall with a long expanse of grass 300 feet in width, major memorials at the southern and western ends of the Mall's axes, and a series of museums along the east-west axis.