This four-year project began with a simple question
Born and raised in St. Louis, I often learned about Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. I began to wonder: what would the United States look like today if Napoleon hadn’t sold the territory? Would France have continued west, pursuing their own vision of manifest destiny? Would the territory eventually claim independence from France and form their own nation?
I also wondered what that meant for St. Louis. Founded by French fur traders in 1764, the city quickly fell into the hands of the Spanish. France was able to reclaim the area in 1800, only to sell it three years later to the US.
Now, imagine an alternate history where Napoleon retains claim to the territory and expands westward. The people of this territory—let’s just call it Louisiana—later claim independence from France and found their own nation. St. Louis, now a flourishing city located on the border between Louisiana and the United States, becomes the new nation’s capital. In an attempt to rival the grandeur of Washington, DC, the nation’s leaders commission their own urban plan for a vast capital city.
This project, beginning in 2018 using Google SketchUp, created a visual representation of what the city could look like today. Purely imaginative, I envisioned a city that mimicked Parisian opulence while neatly organized in a grid. The capital would feature a mall, similar to their American neighbor, as well as grand avenues and roundabouts that would diagonally slice through the city. A vast public garden would sit adjacent to the Mississippi river and directly south of the nation’s parliament, which would be raised to prevent flooding.
Take a look below to see how I envisioned this city and how it could’ve transformed over time.
Disclaimer: Some of the architecture shown above is replicated or inspired by actual buildings around the world.
Shadows move across the downtown area as the day progresses, specifically from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM.
Infrastructure
A theoretical map showing highways and heavy rail lines across the city. Notice how the city built in SketchUp (center) is only a small fraction of the overall metropolitan area. City roads are incomplete and shown as they are to illustrate scale.
A map showing metro lines across the city. Again, roads are incomplete and shown for scale.
