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The Burnham Plan is a popular name for the 1909 ''Plan of Chicago'', co-authored by
Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
and Edward H. Bennett and published in 1909. 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 Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
. The project was begun in 1906 by the
Merchants Club The Merchants Club was a predecessor club to The Commercial Club of Chicago. It was organized in Chicago in 1896. It merged with the Commercial Club in 190Its leaders included Charles G. Dawes, Frederic A. Delano, and Charles H. Wacker. It w ...
, which merged with the
Commercial Club of Chicago The Commercial Club of Chicago is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) social welfare organization founded in 1877 with a mission to promote the social and economic vitality of the metropolitan area of Chicago. History The Commercial Club was founded in 1877 ...
, 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 The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...
in Chicago. After the fair, he had presented ideas for improving Chicago's lakefront, and had worked on city plans for Washington, D.C.,
Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
, and
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, and
Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populated ...
and
Baguio Baguio ( , ), officially the City of Baguio ( ilo, Siudad ti Baguio; fil, Lungsod ng Baguio), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. It is known as the "Summer Capital of the Philippines", ...
in the
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. 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 bird's-eye views for the full-color document, which was printed in lavish book form and presented to the city in July 1909.


Aspects of the plan

The Burnham Plan focused on six major elements:


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 Michigan 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 city's development of facilities in the Lake Calumet regions.


A regional highway system

The plan considered Chicago as the center of a region extending 75 miles (120 km) from the city centre. At the dawn of the automobile age, the plan diagramed 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 Roosevelt Road (originally named 12th Street) is a major east-west street in the city of Chicago, Illinois, and its western suburbs. It is 1200 South in the city's street numbering system, but only south of Madison Street. It runs under this ...
. This, in turn, would allow the expansion of the business district southward. A new
Chicago Union Station Chicago Union Station is an intercity and commuter rail terminal located in the Near West Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The station is Amtrak's flagship station in the Midwest. While serving long-distance passenger trains, it is also ...
was finished in 1925, but no other stations were consolidated or relocated. In 1929, the South Branch of the
Chicago River The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons fo ...
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 Preserves 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 and beautify the fast growing city, including a network of new diagonal streets. One of these diagonals was constructed: the extension of
Ogden Avenue Ogden Avenue is a street extending from the Near West Side of Chicago to Montgomery, Illinois. It was named for William B. Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago. The street follows the route of the Southwestern Plank Road, which opened in 1848 acr ...
and there are several other diagonal streets throughout the city. Many of the plan's street recommendations were followed. The city renovated, widened, and extended Michigan Avenue, widened
Roosevelt Road Roosevelt Road (originally named 12th Street) is a major east-west street in the city of Chicago, Illinois, and its western suburbs. It is 1200 South in the city's street numbering system, but only south of Madison Street. It runs under this ...
, and created
Wacker Drive Wacker Drive is a major multilevel street in Chicago, Illinois, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River in the Loop.Hayner, Don and Tom McNamee, ''Streetwise Chicago'', "Wacke ...
and Ida B. Wells Drive (formerly Congress Parkway). With the growth in automobile usage after
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, Chicago planners began to drastically alter or step away from Burnham's proposals for the street system. 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 did not foresee how it would overwhelm and transform the city itself.


Civic and cultural centers

The most iconic image of the plan was 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 Park consisting of the new
Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...
and new homes for the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
and the
Crerar Library The John Crerar Library is a research library, which after a long history of independent operations, is now operated by the University of Chicago. Throughout its history, the library's technology resources have made it popular with Chicago-area b ...
. 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

Although Burnham died in 1912, the Plan of Chicago was promoted by Commercial Club members and the
Chicago Plan Commission The 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. B ...
. They persuaded the
mayor of Chicago The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and ...
to appoint co-author Edward H. Bennett, a graduate of the
École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...
, and he advised various public agencies as they constructed the projects recommended by the plan, using a design vocabulary reminiscent of 19th century
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
. Mayor William Hale Thompson, 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.Schaffer, Kristin. Introduction to ''Plan of Chicago'' (reprint), Princeton Architectural Press, 1993. 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 Burnham Plan's specific proposals faded with the onset of the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, 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." Image:BurnhamPlan00.jpg, Plan of a park Image:BurnhamPlan1.jpg, Diagram of a system of freight handling Image:BurnhamPlan2.jpg, Suggested docks at the mouth of the Chicago River Image:BurnhamPlan3.jpg, Suggested location and arrangement of railway passenger stations Image:BurnhamPlan4.jpg, Theoretical diagram of street circulation Image:BurnhamPlan5.jpg, Intersection of the three branches of the Chicago River


See also

*
Roads and expressways in Chicago Roads and expressways in Chicago summarizes the main thoroughfares and the numbering system used in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Street layout Chicago's streets were laid out in a grid that grew from the city's original townsite plan ...


Notes


Further reading

* James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating, Janice L. Reiff. ''The Encyclopedia of Chicago'' (University of Chicago Press 2005)
''The Encyclopedia of Chicago'' (online version)
* *
The Plan of Chicago: A Regional Legacy


External links

* *
Educational website created for the centenary of the Plan
* ''
Encyclopedia of Chicago ''The Encyclopedia of Chicago'' is a historical reference work covering Chicago and the entire Chicago metropolitan area published by the University of Chicago Press. Released in October 2004, the work is the result of a ten-year collaboration ...
'' entrie
1
* ttp://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=11167 Online copy {{Authority control History of Chicago Urban planning in the United States Landscape architecture Environmental design Chicago school architecture in Illinois Chicago metropolitan area 1909 in Illinois City plans