The
Burnham Plan is a popular name for the 1909
Plan of Chicago, co-authored by
Daniel BurnhamDaniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and designed several famous buildings, including the Flatiron Building in New York City and Union Station in Washington D.C.-Biography:Burnham was...
and
Edward H. BennettEdward H. Bennett was an architect and city planner best known for his co-authorship of the 1909 Plan of Chicago.-Biography:Bennett was born in Bristol, England in 1874, and later moved to San Francisco with his family...
. It recommended an integrated series of projects including new and widened streets, parks, new railroad and harbor facilities, and civic buildings. Though only portions of the plan were realized, the document reshaped Chicago's central area and was an important influence on the new field of city planning.
The project was begun in 1906 by the Merchants Club, which merged with the
Commercial Club of ChicagoThe Commercial Club of Chicago is a civic improvement club resulted from the 1907 merger of two predecessor Chicago clubs: the Merchants Club and the Commercial Club . Its most active members included George Pullman, Marshall Field, Cyrus McCormick, George Armour, Frederic Delano, Sewell Avery,...
, a group of prominent businessmen who recognized the necessity of improvements to the fast-growing city.
The
Burnham Plan is a popular name for the 1909
Plan of Chicago, co-authored by
Daniel BurnhamDaniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and designed several famous buildings, including the Flatiron Building in New York City and Union Station in Washington D.C.-Biography:Burnham was...
and
Edward H. BennettEdward H. Bennett was an architect and city planner best known for his co-authorship of the 1909 Plan of Chicago.-Biography:Bennett was born in Bristol, England in 1874, and later moved to San Francisco with his family...
. It recommended an integrated series of projects including new and widened streets, parks, new railroad and harbor facilities, and civic buildings. Though only portions of the plan were realized, the document reshaped Chicago's central area and was an important influence on the new field of city planning.
The project was begun in 1906 by the Merchants Club, which merged with the
Commercial Club of ChicagoThe Commercial Club of Chicago is a civic improvement club resulted from the 1907 merger of two predecessor Chicago clubs: the Merchants Club and the Commercial Club . Its most active members included George Pullman, Marshall Field, Cyrus McCormick, George Armour, Frederic Delano, Sewell Avery,...
, a group of prominent businessmen who recognized the necessity of improvements to the fast-growing city. They retained Daniel H. Burnham, an architect who had managed the construction of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and since the fair had presented ideas for improving Chicago's lakefront, and had worked on city plans for Washington, D.C., Cleveland, San Francisco, and Manila and Baguio in the Philippines. Burnham retained Edward Bennett as co-author, and a small staff to help prepare the plan. Charles Moore edited the finished manuscript, and renderer Jules Guérin created several birds-eye views for the full-color document, which was printed in lavish book form.
Details
The plan included six major aspects:
Improvement of the lakefront. Foremost among the plan's goals was reclaiming the lakefront for the public. “The Lakefront by right belongs to the people," wrote Burnham. "Not a foot of its shores should be appropriated to the exclusion of the people.” The plan recommended expanding the parks along the
Lake MichiganLake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one located entirely within the United States. The second largest of the Great Lakes by volume The third largest of the Great Lakes by surface area , it is bounded, from west to east, by the U.S. states of Wisconsin,...
shoreline with landfill, which was done in the early 20th century. Of the city's 29 miles (47 km) of lakefront, all but four miles (six kilometers) are today public parkland. The plan also provided for extensive lakefront harbor facilities, which became unnecessary with the development of facilities in the
Lake CalumetLake Calumet is the largest body of water within the city of Chicago. Formerly a shallow, postglacial lake draining into Lake Michigan, it has been changed beyond recognition by industrial redevelopment and decay...
region and the late 20th century decline in Great Lakes shipping.
A regional highway system. The plan considered Chicago as the center of a region extending 75 miles (120 km) from the city center. At the dawn of the automobile age, the plan diagrammed both radial and circumferential highways for the region. However, the agencies who built and improved highways in the 1910s and 1920s do not appear to have been guided to build along the specific routes recommended in the plan.
Improvement of railway terminals. The plan drew on technical studies previously done by others, including a plan for competing railroads to pool usage of tracks for greater efficiency in freight handling. In addition, the plan detailed the consolidation of Chicago's six intercity railroad passenger terminals into new complexes west of the Loop and south of Roosevelt Road. This, in turn, would allow the expansion of the business district southward. A new
Chicago Union StationUnion Station is a Chicago train station that opened in 1925, replacing an earlier 1881 station, and is now the only intercity rail terminal in Chicago. Union Station was built on the west side of the Chicago River and stands between Adams Street and Jackson Street...
was finished in 1925, but no other stations were consolidated or relocated. In 1929, the South Branch of the
Chicago RiverThe Chicago River is a river that runs 156 miles and flows through Chicago, including the downtown. Though not especially long, the river is notable for the 19th century civil engineering feats that directed its flow south, away from Lake Michigan, into which it previously emptied, and towards...
was rechanneled, between Polk and 18th Streets, to untangle railroad approaches as recommended by the plan.
New outer parks. The movement to purchase and preserve the natural areas that became the
Cook County Forest PreservesThe Cook County Forest Preserves are a network of open spaces, containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes, that are set aside as natural areas. Cook County contains Chicago, Illinois, and is the center of a densely-populated urban metropolitan area in northeastern Illinois...
was well under way as the plan was being written. The plan includes those proposals and also calls for the expansion of the city's park and boulevard system, which had been first established in the 1870s.
Systematic arrangement of streets. New wider arterials were prescribed to relieve traffic congestion in the fast-growing city, including a network of new diagonal streets. Only one of these was ever constructed, the extension of
Ogden AvenueOgden Avenue is an arterial street extending from the Near West Side of Chicago to Naperville, Illinois.The street follows the route of the Southwestern Plank Road, which opened in 1848 across swampy terrain between Chicago and Riverside, Illinois, and was extended to Naperville by 1851.The 1909...
. The plan's recommendations were followed, however, as the city widened Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue, and created Wacker Drive and Congress Parkway. In addition, some 108 miles (174 km) of arterial streets were widened between 1915 and 1931, spurred by the tremendous growth in automobile usage. Writing in 1908, Burnham saw the automobile as a recreational vehicle that would allow city dwellers to visit the countryside. He could not foresee how it would overwhelm and transform the city itself.
Civic and cultural centers. The most iconic image of the plan is the new civic center proposed for the area around Congress and Halsted Streets. However, city officials who preferred the convenience of a Loop location never seriously pursued the proposal. At the east end of Congress Street, which would become the central axis of the reshaped city, Burnham proposed a cultural center in
Grant ParkGrant Park is a large park in the Loop community area of , United States. The park's most notable features are Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain and the Art Institute of Chicago. Grant Park is frequently referred to as the city's front yard...
consisting of the new Field Museum of Natural History and new homes for the
Art Institute of ChicagoThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, The Art Institute of Chicago. Providing degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels, SAIC...
and the Crerar Library. This proposal, however, placed Burnham and other civic leaders in conflict with a state supreme court decision forbidding any new buildings in Grant Park.
Implementation
Though Burnham died in 1912, the Plan of Chicago was promoted by Commercial Club members and the
Chicago Plan CommissionThe Chicago Plan Commission is a commission implemented to promote the Plan of Chicago, often called the Burnham Plan. After official presentation of the Plan to the city on July 6, 1909, the City Council of Chicago authorized Mayor Fred A. Busse to appoint the members of the Chicago Plan Commission...
they persuaded the mayor to appoint. Co-author
Edward BennettEdward Bennett may refer to:* Edward Bennett , English actor* Edward Bennett , American architect* Edward Bennett , American attorney...
, a graduate of the
École des Beaux-ArtsÉcole des Beaux-Arts ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement...
, advised various public agencies as they constructed the projects recommended by the plan, using a design vocabulary reminiscent of 19th century Paris. Mayor
William Hale ThompsonWilliam Hale Thompson was mayor of Chicago from 1915 to 1923 and again from 1927 to 1931. Known as "Big Bill", Thompson was the last Republican to serve as Mayor of Chicago, and ranks among the most corrupt mayors in American history .Thompson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but his family...
, elected in 1915, used
Plan of Chicago projects to promote his image as a Chicago booster, and as a rich source of public contracts.
The plan has been criticized for its focus on physical improvements, an attempt to create "Paris on the Prairie." Burnham's handwritten draft of the plan contained extensive discussion of social needs, but the final publication does not. The plan's list of big infrastructure improvements were badly needed by a rapidly growing city, at a time when an expanding tax base made it possible to undertake large projects.
Enthusiasm for the Plan of Chicago's specific proposals faded with the onset of the Great Depression, but aspects of the plan continued to guide planners as they expanded parks, built new bridges, and laid out the city's superhighway network. Civic leaders still make frequent reference to Burnham's vision for the city, and to an aphorism posthumously attributed to him, the oft-quoted exhortation to "make no little plans."
Further reading
External links