City Beautiful

movement

"White City" buildings in the World's Columbian

Exposition (1893) widely displayed and inspired the
City Beautiful movement, influencing architecture with
such Beaux-Arts structures as the Museum of Science
and Industry building.
The City Beautiful Movement was a
reform philosophy of North American
architecture and urban planning that
flourished during the 1890s and 1900s
with the intent of introducing
beautification and monumental grandeur
in cities. The movement, which was
originally associated mainly with Chicago,
Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C.,
promoted beauty not only for its own sake,
but also to create moral and civic virtue
among urban populations.[1] Advocates of
the philosophy believed that such
beautification could promote a
harmonious social order that would
increase the quality of life, while critics
would complain that the movement was
overly concerned with aesthetics at the
expense of social reform; Jane Jacobs
referred to the movement as an
"architectural design cult."[2]

History
Origins and effect

The movement began in the United States

in response to crowding in tenement
districts, a consequence of high birth
rates, increased immigration and internal
migration of rural populations into cities.
The movement flourished for several
decades, and in addition to the
construction of monuments, it also
achieved great influence in urban planning
that endured throughout the 20th century,
in particular in regard to the later creation
of housing projects in the United States.
The "Garden City" movement in Britain
influenced the contemporary planning of
some newer suburbs of London, and there
was cross-influence between the two
aesthetics, one based in formal garden
plans and urbanization schemes and the
other, with its "semi-detached villas"
evoking a more rural atmosphere.
Architectural idioms

The particular architectural style of the

movement borrowed mainly from the
contemporary Beaux-Arts and
neoclassical architectures, which
emphasized the necessity of order, dignity,
and harmony.

World's Columbian Exposition

The first large-scale elaboration of the City

Beautiful occurred during the World's
Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.
The planning of the exposition was
directed by architect Daniel Burnham, who
hired architects from the eastern United
States, as well as the sculptor Augustus
Saint-Gaudens, to build large-scale Beaux-
Arts monuments that were vaguely
classical with uniform cornice height. The
exposition displayed a model city of grand
scale, known as the "White City", with
modern transport systems and no poverty
visible. The exposition is credited with
resulting in the large-scale adoption of
monumentalism for American architecture
for the next 15 years. Richmond, Virginia's
Monument Avenue is one expression of
this initial phase.

Louisiana Purchase Exposition

The popularization begun by the World
Columbian Exposition was increased by
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St.
Louis in 1904. The commissioner of
architects selected Franco-American
architect Emmanuel Louis Masqueray to
be Chief of Design of the fair. In this
position, which Masqueray held for three
years, he designed the following fair
buildings in the prevailing Beaux Arts
mode: the Palace of Agriculture; the
cascades and colonnades; the Palace of
Forestry, Fish, and Game; the Palace of
Horticulture; and the Palace of
Transportation. All these were widely
emulated in civic projects across the
United States.[3] Masqueray resigned soon
after the fair opened in 1904, having been
invited by Archbishop John Ireland of St.
Paul to Minnesota to design a new
cathedral for the city in the fair's Beaux
Arts style. Other celebrated architects of
the fair's buildings, notably Cass Gilbert,
who designed the Saint Louis Art Museum,
originally the fair's Palace of the Fine Arts,
similarly employed City Beautiful ideas
from the exposition throughout their
careers.
Axial plan of The Mall, Washington, D.C.: the Reflecting
Pool and Lincoln Memorial extend the central axis

McMillan Plan

An early use of the City Beautiful ideal with

the intent of creating social order through
beautification was the McMillan Plan,
(1902) named for Michigan Senator
James McMillan. The plan emerged from
the Senate Park Commission's redesigning
of the monumental core of Washington,
D.C. to commemorate the city's centennial
and to fulfill unrealized aspects of the city
plan of Pierre Charles L'Enfant a century
earlier.

The Washington planners, who included

Burnham, Saint-Gaudens, Charles McKim
of McKim, Mead, and White, and Frederick
Law Olmsted, Jr., visited many of the great
cities of Europe. They hoped to make
Washington monumental and green like
the European capitals of the era; they
believed that state-organized
beautification could lend legitimacy to
government during a time of social
disturbance in the United States. The
essence of the plan surrounded the United
States Capitol with monumental
government buildings to replace
"notorious slum communities". At the
heart of the design was the creation of the
National Mall and eventually included
Burnham's Union Station. The
implementation of the plan was
interrupted by World War I but resumed
after the war, culminating in the
construction of the Lincoln Memorial in
1922.
San Antonio prior to 1920 with establishment of the
Riverwalk

A typical residential street in Miami's Coral Gables

Capitol building in Denver

Influence in other cities

The success of the City Beautiful

philosophy in Washington, D.C., is credited
with influencing subsequent plans for
beautification of many other cities,
including Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland
(The Mall), Columbus, Des Moines, Denver,
Detroit (the Cultural Center, Belle Isle and
Outer Drive),[4][5] Madison (with the axis
from the capitol building through State
Street and to the University of Wisconsin
campus), Montreal, New York City (notably
the Manhattan Municipal Building),
Philadelphia (the Benjamin Franklin
Parkway museum district between
Philadelphia City Hall and the Philadelphia
Museum of Art), Pittsburgh (the Schenley
Farms district in the Oakland
neighborhood of parks, museums, and
universities), San Antonio, Texas (San
Antonio River development), San Francisco
(manifested by its Civic Center), and the
Washington State Capitol Campus in
Olympia and the University of
Washington's Rainier Vista in Seattle. In
Wilmington, Delaware, it inspired the
creation of Rodney Square and the
surrounding civic buildings. In New Haven,
John Russell Pope developed a plan for
Yale University that eliminated
substandard housing and relocated the
urban poor to the peripheries. Kansas City,
Missouri, and Dallas, Texas, undertook the
installation of parkways and parks under
the influence of the movement,[6] and
Coral Gables, Florida would be an example
of a city consistent with the City Beautiful
philosophy.

Chicago
Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago is
considered one of principal documents of
the City Beautiful movement. The plan
featured a dynamic new civic center, axial
streets, and a lush strip of parkland for
recreation alongside the city's lakefront. Of
these, only the lakefront park was
implemented to any significant degree.

In 1913, the City of Chicago appointed a

Commission with a mandate to “make
Chicago Beautiful.” As part of the plan, the
Pennsylvania Union Railroad Depot was to
be moved to the west side of the City and
replaced with a new modern depot.[7] The
West Side Property Owner’s Association
was among those who objected. As
reported by the Chicago Tribune, the
Association’s attorney, Sidney Adler of
Loeb & Adler, said, “As I saw the beautiful
picture of the city beautiful we will have
fountains in West Madison Street, with
poets and poetesses walking along
Clinton, and the simple minded residents
of the west side, after work is done, will
take their gondolas and row on the limpid
bosom of the Chicago River idlely
strumming guitars.” [8]

Coral Gables
Planned out as a suburb of Miami, Florida
in the early 1920s by George Edgar
Merrick during the Florida land boom of
the 1920s, Coral Gables was developed
entirely upon the City Beautiful movement,
with obelisks, fountains, and monuments
seen in street roundabouts, parks, city
buildings and around the city. Today, Coral
Gables is one of Miami's most expensive
suburban communities, long known for its
strict zoning regulations which preserve
the City Beautiful elements along with its
Mediterranean Revival architecture style,
which is prevalent throughout the city.
Coral Gables has many parks and a heavy
tree canopy with an urban forest planted
largely in the 1920s.

Denver

In Denver, Colorado, Mayor Robert W.

Speer endorsed City Beautiful planning,
with a plan for a Civic Center, disposed
along a grand esplanade that led to the
Colorado State Capitol. The plan was
partly realized, on a reduced scale, with
the Greek amphitheater, Voorhies
Memorial and the Colonnade of Civic
Benefactors, completed in 1919. The
Andrew Carnegie Foundation funded the
Denver Public Library (1910), which was
designed as a three-story Greek Revival
temple with a colossal Ionic colonnade
across its front; inside it featured open
shelves, an art gallery and a children's
room. Monuments and vistas were an
essential feature of City Beautiful urban
planning: in Denver, Paris-trained American
sculptor Frederick MacMonnies was
commissioned to design a monument
marking the end of the Smoky Hill Trail.
The bronze Indian guide he envisaged was
vetoed by the committee and replaced
with an equestrian Kit Carson.

Harrisburg
Harrisburg's movement of beautification
and improvement was one of the earliest
and most successful urban reform
movements in the country.[9] It began
when local minded residents became
convinced that their city was unattractive,
unhealthy, and filthy, and lacked the
appearance and facilities appropriate to its
status as Pennsylvania's state capital. The
causes of the city's defects were well
known: industrialization in the previous
half century had left the city poorly
planned with unpaved streets and
undeveloped water management systems.
Residents of Harrisburg suffered disease
and illnesses caused by the lack of good
filtration systems that could filter the
sewage dumped by populations further up
the Susquehanna River. A disastrous fire
that consumed the state capitol in 1897
had spawned new conversation about the
suitability of Harrisburg as a state capital.

The improvement campaign was sparked

by a riveting speech of conservationist
Mira Lloyd Dock to the Harrisburg Board of
Trade on December 20, 1900. Dock
wanted to publicly challenge the horrific
conditions in Harrisburg, and set out to
gain public sentiment in support of
changing them. Dock’s speech was titled
“The City Beautiful” or “Improvement Work
at Home and Abroad”, and this was the
starting point for Harrisburg’s city
improvements. Dock’s contemporary and
closest ally in her drive for urban
beautification was J. Horace McFarland,
who was the president of the American
Civic Association.[10] With McFarland and
Dock working together they were able to
push the process of municipal
improvement in Harrisburg by convincing
prominent community leaders to donate
money, and by gathering the support of the
majority of citizens. In April 1901 the
Harrisburg Telegraph a city newspaper
published a front-page article on the city’s
problems, which stressed Dock’s message
of beautification and recreation, paved
streets, clean water, a city hall, land for
parks, and a covered sewer interceptor
along the river. The following February,
1901, the population voted in favor of a
bond issue that funded $1.1 million in new
constructions and city planning. These
improvements, combined with a new state
capitol building in 1906, quickly
transformed Harrisburg into a proud
modern city by 1915.

Memphis

In Memphis, the City Beautiful

Commission was officially established by
a city ordinance on July 1, 1930, making it
the first and oldest beautification
commission in the nation. It was the
brainchild of the mayor, Mr. E. H. Crump.
The first Commission was appointed and
had operating expenses of $1,500. A small
office was set up in The Nineteenth
Century Club. Mrs. E. G. Willingham was
chosen as chairman and Mrs. William B.
Fowler served as vice chairman. In 1935,
the Riverside Drive project was dedicated.
Costing nearly $1,000,000 (largely WPA
funds) the City Beautiful Commission
landscaped the bluffs with crape myrtle,
redbuds, magnolias, dogwoods and Paul
Scarlet roses. White roses were planted at
each guardrail post. In 1936, Mrs. William
B. Fowler became chairman of the City
Beautiful Commission and served for
many years. City Beautiful grew under her
leadership and soon had to relocate to
larger headquarters. Through the efforts
of City Beautiful, Memphis gained the title
of cleanest city in Tennessee in 1940,
1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945 and 1946.
Memphis also received the Ernest T. Trigg
“Nation’s Cleanest City” award in 1948,
1949, 1950 and 1951. During this time,
volunteers were organized into Wards and
Block Clubs with Ward Chairmen and
Block Captains. The City Beautiful staff
grew to include 30 inspectors by 1954 who
worked through these organizations to
identify and improve eyesores. Memphis
participated with the National Clean-Up,
Paint-Up, Fix-Up Beautification Bureau
headquartered in Washington, D.C.[1] [2]
[3] In 1978, the Commission was
reorganized, eliminating the field
inspectors. In February 1989, the
Commission moved to its present location
at The Massey House in Victorian Village,
Memphis.

Palos Verdes Estates

In the 1920s, Palos Verdes Estates,

California was established as a master
planned community by noted American
landscape architect, Frederick Law
Olmsted. The community was designed as
a "City Beautiful."[11] Among its earliest
structures were the buildings comprising
Malaga Cove Plaza which were designed
in a Mediterranean Revival style popular
with the City Beautiful movement.

In Australia
Both European and North American cities
provided models for the Australian City
Beautiful movement. A combination of
elements about 1900 also influenced the
movement:
It was thought that Australia, being a
country that was relatively newly settled
by Europeans, had wasted an
opportunity to design cities
comprehensively and aesthetically.[12]
Australian cities were seen as lacking
beauty and civic pride.[12]
The lack of architectural features, and
extensive street advertising, were also
concerns. This was attributed to
“materialism, apathy, short-sightedness,
political interference and
indifference”.[13]
Utopian city plans were another
influence on the Australian City Beautiful
 movement. A better Brisbane, for
example, was described by Louis Esson
and illustrated by Lloyd Rees with a
Parisian influence.[13]

However, City Beautiful was not solely

concerned with aesthetics. The term
‘beautility’ derived from the American city
beautiful philosophy, which meant that the
beautification of a city must also be
functional. Beautility, including the proven
economic value of improvements,
influenced Australian town planning.[12]

There were no formal city beautiful

organisations that led this movement in
Australia; rather it was influenced by
communications among professionals
and bureaucrats, in particular architect-
planners and local government
reformers.[12] In the early Federation era
some influential Australians were
determined that their cities be progressive
and competitive. Adelaide was used as an
Australian example of the “benefits of
comprehensive civic design” with its ring
of parklands. Beautification of the city of
Hobart, for example, was considered a
way to increase the city’s popularity as a
tourist destination.[12]

Canberra
Walter Burley Griffin incorporated City
Beautiful principles for his design for
Canberra.[12] Griffin was influenced by
Washington “with grand axes and vistas
and a strong central focal point”[14] with
specialised centres and, being a
landscape architect, used the landscape to
complement this layout.[15] John Sulman,
however, was Australia's "leading
proponent" of the City Beautiful movement
and, in 1921, wrote the book An
Introduction to Australian City Planning.[14]
Both the City Beautiful and the Garden City
philosophies were represented by
Sulman’s “geometric or contour controlled”
designs of the circulatory road systems in
Canberra. The widths of pavements were
also reduced and vegetated areas were
increased, such as planted road verges.[16]

Melbourne

Melbourne’s grid plan was considered dull

and monotonous by some people, and so
the architect William Campbell designed a
blueprint for the city. The main principle
behind this were diagonal streets,
providing sites for new and
comprehensive architecture and for
special buildings. The designs of Paris and
Washington were major inspirations for
this plan.[13]
City Beautiful in Australia
today

World War I prolonged the City Beautiful

movement in Australia, as more
memorials were erected than in any other
country. Although City Beautiful, or artistic
planning, became a part of comprehensive
town planning, the Great Depression of the
1930s largely ended this fashion.[13] Now,
however, in Australia, many streets are
tree-lined and streetscapes and skylines
are regulated. This was largely a result of
the City Beautiful philosophy.

See also
 Defensible space
Garden city movement
Mira Lloyd Dock and the Progressive Era
Conservation Movement

References
Notes

1. Daniel M. Bluestone, Columbia University,

(September 1988).Detroit's City Beautiful
and the Problem of Commerce Journal of
the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol.
XLVII, No. 3, pp. 245-62.
2. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of
Great American Cities (New York: Random
House, 1961), p.375; quoted in Rybczynski,
Witold. City Life: Urban Expectations in a
New World New York: Scribner, 1995. p.27.
ISBN 0-684-81302-5.
3. Marter, Joan M. The Grove Encyclopedia
of American Art, Vol. 1. pp. 602-03. Oxford
UP, 2011.
4.
https://usp100detroit.wordpress.com/city-
beautiful/
5.
http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/history-
of-the-mystery/Content?oid=2179308
6. Rybczynski, Witold. City Life: Urban
Expectations in a New World New York:
Scribner, 1995. p135. ISBN 0-684-81302-5.
7. Arnstein & Lehr, The First 120 Years
(Amazon), pp 11 and 12
8. Chicago Tribune, May 29, 1913
9. Wilson, William H. (1989). The City
Beautiful Movement. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press. pp. 126–146.
ISBN 0801837588.
10. Chambliss, Julian (2010). "Perfecting
Space: J. Horace McFarland and the
American Civic Association". Pennsylvania
History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies.
77 (4): 486–497.
11. Gates THE PALOS VERDES RANCH
PROJECT: Olmsted Brothers' Design
Development For A Picturesque Los
Angeles Suburban Community Of The
1920s Available at
http://corbu2.caed.kent.edu/architronic/v6n
1/v6n1.03a.html
12. Freestone R (2000) From city
improvement to the city beautiful; chapter 2.
In: Hamnett S and Freestone R (eds) The
Australian Metropolis: A Planning History.
Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
13. Freestone R (2007) Designing
Australia’s cities. UNSW Press, Kensington,
pp. 45–79.
14. Stelter GA (2000) Rethinking the
significance of the City Beautiful idea. In;
Freestone R, Urban planning in a changing
world: The twentieth century experience.
Taylor & Francis, pp. 98–117.
15. Banks JCG, Bracks CL (2003)
Canberra’s urban forest: evolution and
planning for future landscapes. Urban
Forestry & Urban Greening 1(3), 151-160.
16. Ward A (2000) Assessment of Garden
City planning principles in the ACT.
Environment ACT, Heritage Unit, Canberra.
Available at
http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/
pdf_file/0019/13177/gardencity.pdf
(verified 18 May 2009).

External links
University of Virginia: The City Beautiful
movement
Monument Avenue
Denver Public Library: Denver, The City
Beautiful