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Daniel Burnham

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Daniel Burnham
Born(1846-09-04)September 4, 1846
Henderson, New York, United States
DiedJune 1, 1912(1912-06-01) (aged 65)
Heidelberg, Germany
NationalityAmerican
OccupationArchitect
PracticeBurnham and Root
BuildingsFlatiron Building, Union Station (Washington, D.C.), Postal Square Building
ProjectsWorld's Columbian Exposition
Court of Honor and Grand Basin — World's Columbian Exposition
Burnham's plan for central Chicago

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. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington, D.C. He also designed several famous buildings, including the Flatiron Building in New York City and Union Station in Washington D.C. Daniel Burnham also designed the cities of Chicago, Manila, and Baguio.

Biography

Burnham was born in Henderson, New York and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His parents brought him up under the teachings of the Swedenborgian Church of New Jerusalem,[1] which ingrained in him the strong belief that man should strive to be of service to others.[2] After failing admissions tests for both Harvard and Yale, and an unsuccessful stint at politics, Burnham apprenticed as a draftsman under William LeBaron Jenney. At age 26, Burnham moved on to the Chicago offices of Carter, Drake, and Wight, where he met future business partner John Wellborn Root (1850–1891).

Masonic Temple Building in Chicago

Burnham and Root were the architects of one of the first American skyscrapers: the Masonic Temple Building[3] in Chicago. Measuring 21 stories and 302 feet, the temple held claims as the tallest building of its time, but was torn down in 1939. Under the design influence of Root, the firm had produced modern buildings as part of the Chicago School. Following Root’s premature death from pneumonia in 1891, the firm became known as D.H. Burnham & Company.

World's Columbian Exposition

Burnham and Root had accepted responsibility to oversee design and construction of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago’s then-desolate Jackson Park on the south lakefront. The largest world's fair to that date (1893), it celebrated the 400-year anniversary of Christopher Columbus' famous voyage. After Root's sudden and unexpected death, a team of distinguished American architects and landscape architects, including Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim and Louis Sullivan, radically changed Root's modern and colorful style to a Classical Revival style. Under Burnham's direction, the construction of the Fair overcame huge financial and logistical hurdles, including a worldwide financial panic and an extremely tight timeframe, to open on time.

Considered the first example of a comprehensive planning document in the nation, the fairground was complete with grand boulevards, classical building facades, and lush gardens. Often called the "White City", it popularized neoclassical architecture in a monumental and rational Beaux-Arts plan. The remaining population of architects in the U.S. were soon asked by clients to incorporate similar elements into their designs.

City planning and "The Plan of Chicago"

Main article: Burnham Plan

Initiated in 1906 and published in 1909, Burnham and his co-author Edward H. Bennett prepared "The Plan of Chicago", which laid out plans for the future of the city. It was the first comprehensive plan for the controlled growth of an American city, and an outgrowth of the City Beautiful movement. The plan included ambitious proposals for the lakefront and river and declared that every citizen should be within walking distance of a park. Sponsored by the Commercial Club of Chicago,[4] Burnham donated his services in hopes of furthering his own cause.

Plans and conceptual designs of the south lakefront[5] from the Exposition came in handy, as he envisioned Chicago being a "Paris on the Prairie". French-inspired public works constructions, fountains, and boulevards radiating from a central, domed municipal palace became Chicago's new backdrop. Though only parts of the plan were actually implemented, it set the standard for urban design, anticipating future need to control unexpected urban growth, and continued to influence the development of Chicago long after Burnham's death.

City planning projects did not stop at Chicago though. Burnham contributed to plans for cities such as Cleveland (the Group Plan), San Francisco, and Manila and Baguio in the Philippines, details of which appear in "The Chicago Plan" publication of 1909. His plans for the redesign of San Francisco were delivered to City Hall on April 17, 1906, the day before the 1906 earthquake. In the haste to rebuild the city, the plans were ultimately ignored. The Plan for Manila never fully materialized, except for a shore road, which became Dewey boulevard, now known as Roxas boulevard and various neo-classical government buildings around Luneta Park, which very much resembles a mini version of Washington D.C.

In Washington, D.C., Burnham did much to shape the 1901 McMillan Plan, which led to the completion of the overall design of the National Mall. The Senate Park Commission, or McMillan Commission, established by Michigan Senator James McMillan, brought together Burnham and three of his colleagues from the World's Columbian Exposition—architect Charles Follen McKim, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Going well beyond Pierre L'Enfant's original vision for the city, the plan provided for the extension of the Mall beyond the Washington Monument to a new Lincoln Memorial and a "pantheon" that eventually materialized as the Jefferson Memorial. This plan involved significant reclamation of land from swamp and the Potomac River, and the relocation of an existing railroad station on the site, which was replaced by Burnham's own design for Union Station.[6] As a result of his service on the McMillan Commission, in 1910 Burnham was appointed a member and the first chairman of the United States Commission of Fine Arts, helping to assure the implementation of the McMillann Plan's vision. Burnham served on the commission until his death in 1912.[7]

Influence

Much of his work was based on the classical style of Greece and Rome. In his 1924 autobiography, Louis Sullivan, one of the leading architects from the Chicago School but one who had enjoyed difficult relations with Burnham over an extended period, criticised Burnham for what Sullivan viewed as his lack of original expression and dependence on Classicism.[8] Sullivan went on to claim that "the damage wrought by the World's Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not longer"[9]—a sentiment edged with bitterness, as corporate America of the early 20th century had demonstrated a strong preference for Burnham's architectural style over Sullivan's.

Burnham and Bennett's plan for San Francisco

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.[10][11]

A man of influence, Burnham was considered the preeminent architect in America at the start of the 20th century. He held many positions during his lifetime, including the presidency of the American Institute of Architects.[12] Other notable architects began their careers under his aegis, such as Joseph W. McCarthy. In 1912, when he died in Heidelberg, Germany, D.H. Burnham and Co. was the world's largest architectural firm. Even legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, although strongly critical of Burnham's Beaux Arts European influences still admired him as a man, eulogized: "(Burnham) made masterful use of the methods and men of his time... (as) an enthusiastic promoter of great construction enterprises... his powerful personality was supreme." His firm continues its work today under the name Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, which it adopted in 1917.

Memorials

Tributes to Burnham include Burnham Park and Daniel Burnham Court in Chicago, Burnham Park in Baguio City in the Philippines, Daniel Burnham Court in San Francisco (formerly Hemlock Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street), the annual Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan (run by the American Planning Association),[13] and the Burnham Memorial Competition held in 2009 to create a memorial to Burnham and his Plan of Chicago.[14] Collections of Burnham's personal and professional papers, photographs, and other archival materials are held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Notable commissions

Philippines

Burnham's Plan for Manila

Chicago

Detroit

Pittsburgh

Washington, D.C.

Fayette Building
Uniontown, Pennsylvania

Others

  • Make No Little Plans - Daniel Burnham and the American City[17] is the first feature length documentary film about noted architect and urban planner Daniel Hudson Burnham, produced by the Archimedia Workshop. National distribution in 2009 coincided with the centennial celebration of Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett's 1909 Plan of Chicago.
  • The Devil in the White City, a non-fiction book by Erik Larson, intertwines the true tale of two men: H.H. Holmes, a serial killer famed for his 'murderous hotel' in Chicago, and Daniel Burnham.
  • In the role-playing game Unknown Armies, James K. McGowan, the True King of Chicago, quotes Daniel Burnham and regards him as a paragon of the Windy City's mysterious and magical past.
  • In the episode "Legendaddy" of TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother, the character Ted, who is professor of architecture, describes Burnham as an "architectural chameleon."

References

Notes
  1. ^ The New Church, a Swedenborgian Faith
  2. ^ Carl Smith, The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City, p. 56
  3. ^ "Masonic Temple, Chicago". Old Chicago in Vintage Postcards. Retrieved 2008-06-04.
  4. ^ "The Commercial Club of Chicago: Purpose & History". Retrieved 2008-06-04.
  5. ^ American Memory Digital Item Display - 2007660861
  6. ^ Movie: "Make No Little Plans"
  7. ^ Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 541.
  8. ^ Sullivan, Louis, The Autobiography of an Idea, Press of the American Institute of Architects, Inc, 1924 p. 320-21
  9. ^ Sullivan, Louis, The Autobiography of an Idea, Press of the American Institute of Architects, Inc, 1924 p. 325
  10. ^ Abbot, Willis J. "How Chicago Is Making Its Vision of Civic Splendor a Reality Is Told by Man Who Led in Project That Proves Economic Value of 'Mere Beauty' : Story of Commercial City's Education in Aesthetics Recited by Charles H. Wacker : Chicago Plan Commission's Former Head Shows How Transformation Has Been Wrought - Ideal Improvements, Once Pictured, Became Visible Goals of Community Endeavo - Were Even Taught In Schools." Christian Science Monitor, 18 January 1927; page 8.
  11. ^ Moore, Charles. "Daniel H. Burnham, Architect, Planner of Cities." Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1921; Volume 2; Chapter XXV "Closing in 1911-1912;" Page 1921.
  12. ^ "AIA Presidents". American Institute of Architects. Retrieved 2008-06-04.
  13. ^ "National Planning Awards". American Planning Association. Retrieved 2008-06-04.
  14. ^ "Design Competition and Exhibit". Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
  15. ^ "Illinois - Cook County". National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
  16. ^ Randall, Frank Alfred. History of the Development of Building Construction in Chicago. Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. p. 286. ISBN 0-252-02416-8. Retrieved 2008-11-02. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ "Daniel Burnham Film". The Archimedia Workshop. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
Bibliography
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Daniel Burnham.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Daniel Burnham.

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