DANIEL

HUDSON
BURNHAM
 ABOUT
 Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA (September 4,
1846 – June 1, 1912) was an
American architect and urban designer.
 He was the Director of Works for the World‘s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, colloquially
referred to as "The White City".
 Burnham took a leading role in the creation
of master plans for the development of a
number of cities,
including Chicago, Manila, Baguio and
downtown Washington, D.C.
 He also designed several famous buildings,
including the Flatiron Building of triangular
shape in New York City, Union Station in
Washington D.C., the Continental Trust
Company Building tower skyscraper
in Baltimore (now One South Calvert
Building), and a number of notable
skyscrapers in Chicago.
 Although best known for his skyscrapers,
city planning, and for the White City.
 CAREER
 In 1867 Draftsman under William LeBaron
Jenney of the architectural firm Loring &
Jenney.
 In 1871 Chicago and When the Great Chicago
Fire hit the city, it seemed as if there would
be endless work for architects, took a position
with the architect L. G. Laurean.
 In 1872, Burnham moved on to the Chicago
offices of Carter, Drake and Wight
 In 1873, architectural office with John
Wellborn Root ‘’ Burnham and Root ’’
 Sherman which provided the livelihood –
directly or indirectly – for one-fifth of the
city's population hired the firm to build for
him a mansion on Prairie Avenue Chicago.
 It was on the construction site of the mansion
that he met Sherman's daughter, Margaret,
whom Burnham married in 1876 .Sherman
started to commission other projects from
Burnham and Root, including the Stone Gate,
an entry portal to the stockyards, which
became a Chicago landmark.
 In 1881, the firm was commissioned to
build the Montauk Building, which would
be the tallest building in Chicago at the
time.
 The talents of the two partners were
complementary. Both men were artists
and gifted architects, but Root had a
knack for conceiving elegant designs and
was able to see almost at once the totality
of the necessary structure. Burnham, on
the other hand, excelled at bringing in
clients and supervising the building of
Root's designs. They each appreciated the
value of the other to the firm. Burnham
also took steps to ensure their employees
were happy: he installed a gym in the
office, gave fencing lessons and let
employees play handball at lunch time.
Root, a pianist and organist, gave piano
recitals in the office on a rented piano.
 Till 1892,Burnham and Root went on to
build more of the first American
skyscrapers, such as the Masonic Temple
Building in Chicago. Measuring 21 stories
and 302 feet, the tallest building of its
time.
• On January 15, 1891, while the
firm was deep in meetings for the
design of the World's Columbian
Exposition, Root died after a
three-day course of pneumonia.
• After that the firm continued it
successes and Burnham extended
his reach into city design.
• In 1893,the largest world's fair,
Burnham and Root had accepted
responsibility to oversee the
design and construction of
the World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago's., it
celebrated the 400-year
anniversary of Christopher
Columbus's famous voyage.
• After Root's death, a team of
distinguished American architects
and landscape architects,
including Burnham, Frederick Law
Olmsted, Charles McKim, Richard
M. Hunt, George B. Post, Henry
Van Brunt, and Louis Sullivan,
radically changed Root's modern
and colorful style to a Classical
Revival style.
• In 1897 the Land Title
Building (1897) in Philadelphia,
the finest example of early
skyscraper design.
• Initiated in 1906 and published
in 1909, Burnham and his co-
author Edward H.
Bennett prepared a Plan of
Chicago, which laid out plans for
the future of the city.
• He held many positions during
his lifetime, including the
presidency of the American
Institute of Architects. Other
notable architects began their
careers under his aegis, such
as Joseph W. McCarthy. Several
of his descendants have worked
as influential architects and
planners in the United States,
including his son, Daniel
Burnham Jr., and grandchildren
Burnham Kelly and Margaret
Burnham Geddes.
• Of the 27 building designed by
Burnham and Root for Chicago's
Loop, only The Rookery and
the Reliance Building remain.
 BURNHAM'S
CENTRAL PLAN
FOR
CHICAGO 1909
The urban design of Chicago
stemmed from the Central Plan
established by Daniel Burnham
and Edward Bennett

The harmonious
arrangement and quiet
order of the World’s
Columbian Exposition
(above) contrasted greatly
with the city’s noise, dirt,
and congestion. Could the
busy commercial city be
made as appealing?
THE BACKGROUND OF PLAN
The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893
attracted 21 million visitors—at a time when
the nation’s population was only 66 million.
Interest in city planning took root across the
country, and Daniel Burnham, Director of
Works for the fair, became nationally renowned
for his planning skills.
He aided the Senate Park Commission with a
1902 plan for Washington, D.C., and prepared
plans for Manila and Cleveland.
His plan for San Francisco was delivered shortly
before the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed
the city.
Finally, in 1906–1907, Burnham began work on
a Plan of Chicago under the sponsorship of the
Commercial Club.
Burnham and the Plan’s coauthor, architect
Edward Bennett, hired draftsmen and began
collecting information from officials around the
world.
On July 4, 1909, the Plan of Chicago was The Senate Park
ceremoniously presented to the city. But more Commission, advised
importantly, in the months that followed, by Burnham, prepared a
the Commercial Club’s influential members 1902 plan that reshaped
pushed for official recognition of the Plan and the monumental core of
worked for adoption of its recommendations. Washington, D.C.

Burnham
prepared a
1905 plan for
San Francisco,
but it received
little attention
after the city
was destroyed
in 1906 by
earthquake
and fire.

In 1900, the city limits

were well beyond the built
up areas (tan), though a
few suburbs were already
well established. The
Plan anticipated that the
Des Plaines River would
become the natural
boundary of the city.
 THE LAKEFRONT
Perhaps the Plan’s most treasured legacy is
the city’s public lakefront, unique in the
world.
When the Plan was written, only a quarter
of the city’s shoreline was publicly
accessible.
Landfill operations had already expanded
Lincoln and Grant Parks, but Burnham
pointed out that the city was annually
disposing of one million cubic yards of clean
fill—mostly ashes from coal-burning boilers
and dirt removed for basements—by
dumping it far out in the lake.
That was enough to create more than 20
acres of landfill if dumped close to shore.
The south lakefront
Hundreds of acres of new
(below) was little more
parkland (green) were created
than a dumping ground
along Chicago’s lakefront
at the time, but
between 1910 and 1960.
Burnham proposed
expanding and
transforming it into
parkland (right).
Offshore islands would
shelter quiet lagoons,
providing new
shorelines and sites for
pavilions and ballfields.
NEW STREETS
Chicago’s streets were wide and evenly distributed by European Ogden Avenue was
extended 2.7 miles
standards, but the busy river and extensive rail yards created through the Old
serious congestion. Town neighborhood
Heavy freight wagons clogged downtown streets going to and in the 1920s; only
40 years later it was
from railroad facilities. abandoned as
The Plan proposed several circuits of widened streets around the unnecessary.
central area, and creation of a broad Michigan Avenue,
anticipated to become the busiest street in the world.
Widening of Michigan Avenue by taking a strip of Grant Park was
the first accomplishment of the Plan, and the former Pine Street
was more than doubled in width north of the river.
A new double-deck bridge, opened in 1920, allowed north-south
traffic to avoid conflicts with freight traffic bound for rail yards
and docks at the mouth of the river.
Another early Plan improvement was a wide new viaduct to carry
Roosevelt Road across many blocks of rail yards and the South
Branch of the Chicago River, opened in 1916.

The unique double-

deck Wacker Drive in
1926 replaced the
crowded South Water
Street market along
the riverbank.
RAILROADS
The Plan proposed an ambitious scheme of
shared freight railroad circuits, which would
encircle the city at various distances and be
used by all railroads, with a huge
consolidated freight yard south of today’s
Midway Airport.
The Plan cited the example of Chicago’s
tunnel system under downtown streets,
which allowed small freight shipments to
move from railroad freight houses to
downtown basements without congesting
surface streets.
Whatever the merits of the proposals, the
Plan had little influence over the railroads,
which pursued their own business interests.
The Plan also recommended consolidating
Chicago’s six passenger rail stations west of
the river and south of Roosevelt Road.
In 1912, the Plan Commission tried
unsuccessfully to persuade the Pennsylvania
Railroad to locate the new Union Station
south of Roosevelt Road.
After a decade of construction, the new
two-block station finally opened in 1925
between Adams and Jackson.
Instead, Navy Pier HARBOUR
included a ballroom and Chicago was also one of the world’s
promenades at both ends,
with freight sheds in
busiest
the middle. ports, where ships carefully threaded
through the narrow river past center-
pivot bridges.
The Plan proposed a new lake harbor
sheltered by piers at Chicago Avenue
and Cermak Road, as well as new
docks at the mouth of the Calumet
River.
Navy Pier was built in 1916 at Grand
Avenue, but during the 20th century
Great Lakes shipping operations both
declined and shifted to port facilities at
Lake Calumet. Federal officials worried
that devoting the lakefront to
recreation would not provide adequate
harbor facilities, so the Commercial
Club sponsored the more detailed
1927 Harbor Plan of Chicago, which
recommended one inland and three
Burnham sketched
recreational areas along
lakefront port facilities.
one side of a new peninsula
with docks on the
other
Burnham is famously quoted as saying, "Make no little
plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably
will not themselves be realized." This slogan has been
taken to capture the essence of Burnham's spirit.

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