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Daniel Burnham PUP 501 Planning History and Theory Assignment 2 Innovator Profile Daniel Burnham Joshua Schmidt October 7, 2011 1 Daniel Burnham was an influential urban planner who lived from 1846 to 1912 (Hines, XXI). He was born to an upper middle class family, allowing him to have tutors to assist him in academic efforts, and one such tutor interested him in architecture, a profession Burnham enjoyed (Hines, 9, 12). Burnham’s successful career in architecture would lead to his success in urban planning. Three major influences on Burnham’s planning efforts were the Swedenborgian religion, his political stance as a progressive Republican, and his stint with politics. The Swedenborgian religion Burnham was raised in promotes “usefulness to society” (Swedenborg Library). Urban planning is essentially about improving society, making the profession a perfect fit for Burnham. The progressive reform movement occurred at the time Burnham performed his planning work, and was essentially about repairing the damage industrialization did to American society (Teaching with Documents). Progressive Republican ideals influenced his work in many ways, such as his attempts to remove “health hazards” (Learn About). Burnham attempted to run for a seat in the Nevada state senate in 1870, and was almost victorious (Hines, 12). His relative political success proved he could work effectively with people, a skill Burnham would use to his advantage time and again during his planning efforts (Hines, 13). Burnham’s first planning effort was the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, also known as the World’s Fair. This was followed by his work on plans for Washington DC, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Chicago in the United States, as well as Manila and Baguio in the Philippines. As Director of Works at the World’s Fair, Burnham helped develop the plan and oversaw the construction process (Hines, 77, 94). The fair is considered to have been the beginning of the City Beautiful Movement, which Burnham is credited with founding (Hines, 74). The fair proved very popular, with over 20 million people in attendance (Hines, 117). The McMillan Plan in 1902 for Washington DC was essentially a redevelopment plan, and a rehash of the original L’Enfant plan (Hines, 139-140). The plan focused on improving the National Mall, and although the plan was implemented slowly, it was ultimately successful, and popularized comprehensive planning with the American public (Hines, 153, 156). The relatively successful Cleveland Group Plan in 1903 was basically an urban renewal project in which a new civic center in the city’s downtown area was built on an area formally housing impoverished residents (Hines, 163, 172). The San Francisco plan in 1905 was initially unused due to the earthquake and fire in 1906 that encouraged quick rebuilding of the 2 city (Hines, 190, 192). The plan was Burnham’s most comprehensive at the time, concerning the entire city, and focused on improving accessibility, increasing parks, and creating new public buildings (Hines, 183, 185, 188). In 1905, Burnham’s plan for Manila was for the city’s redevelopment, whereas his plan for Baguio was about creating a new city to be used as the Philippine government’s summer capital (Hines, 201). Both plans proved very successful because they were able to sidestep “democratic processes” and “local opposition” to proceed quickly (Hines, 213). Burnham’s final plan was the plan for Chicago in 1909, which is considered to have been the first regional plan (Hines, 331). The 20 miles of parkland along the waterfront, the creation of additional parks throughout the city, straightening the river, and street improvements are the parts of the plan which were the most successfully implemented (Hines, 331, 341- 343). Through his efforts on all of these plans, Burnham suggested several methods and theories to allow successful planning, many of which are still in use in contemporary times. According to Burnham, planners should merge practical needs with aesthetics, and utilize an area’s natural amenities. They should convey a sense of power, create a cluster of civic buildings, and make various street improvements. Planners should recognize the importance of parks. They need to seek out those with power and influence them to support the plan, and plan comprehensively. According to Burnham, planners should proceed with urban renewal projects, plan sustainably, utilize form-based code, but Burnham himself may have been a Euclidean zoning advocate. Burnham believed there was a positive correlation between economic well-being and the aesthetic beauty of a city, and so his tendency to merge practical needs with aesthetics is evident throughout his plans (Hines, 315). A major part of the Chicago plan was the beautification of the city in order to increase people’s morale, as well as encourage wealthy residents of the city to remain and to attract tourism to enhance the city’s economy (Hines, 332-333). Burnham sited a new railroad station to the north of the Cleveland Civic Center because it was a good location for serving the area and would acknowledge the importance of railroads to American society (Hines, 167). He utilized canals on two occasions, once at the World’s Fair, and in his plan for Manila, since canals can have aesthetic value like the canals of Venice (Hines, 207). Burnham also supported the use of canals so all the buildings at the fair 3 could be accessed by water, and because they provide easy and inexpensive transportation (Hines, 77, 206). He believed strongly in utilizing an area’s natural amenities. The decision to make the exposition buildings accessible on water was because the exposition was located on Jackson Park, an undeveloped marsh (Hines, 77). Since Manila was adjacent to an ocean bay, and because it had a river running through it, Burnham recommended they be utilized for their cooling effects to mitigate the heat of the city (Hines, 205). He included a 20-mile long park system in the Chicago plan because it would utilize the city’s adjacency to Lake Michigan as much as possible (Hines, 331). Contemporary urban planning makes use of both of these methods. Like European cities, Burnham wanted to bring a sense of “power, grandeur, mystery, and monumentality” to America (Hines, 137). This is evident in the McMillan Plan’s improvements of the National Mall in Washington DC. The plan placed the Washington Monument at the intersection of the axes of the White House and the Capitol Building, added the reflection pool between the Washington Monument and the new Lincoln Memorial adjacent to the river, and created the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the cemetery (Hines, 152-153). Furthermore, Burnham’s tendency to create a cluster of public governmental and cultural buildings in a city’s center with diagonal roads leading to it was meant to allow the people to gage a sense of power, as well as for easy accessibility to those buildings (Hines, 203). The plans for the World’s Fair, Cleveland, San Francisco, Manila, and Chicago all called for a civic cluster, and interestingly, they were never located on the current node of activity (Hines, 77, 163, 183, 203, 331). In Manila’s case, the placement of the cluster south of the historic Intramuros was meant to respect the city’s culture, however he did recommend the drainage of the Intramuros’ moat and it’s replacement with a circular park because it was a health hazard, and the creation of a few new gateways in the wall to east traffic congestion (Hines, 203, 205-206). Often, Burnham’s plans called for street improvements. He proved himself to be against the universal application of a grid pattern for streets, as in San Francisco, Manila, and Baguio, the naturally hilly topography of those cities necessitated a different street pattern (Hines, 183, 204, 209). In Burnham’s San Francisco plan, he lamented it was not possible to undo the grid, and so he recommended the construction of new diagonal streets for greater accessibility, and for all other new roads to follow the city’s natural topography (Hines, 183-184). His Manila and Baguio plans 4 were quite similar (Hines, 204, 209). Burnham preferred diagonal streets because “planning of a town should be carried out [so] that a person may pass from any given point to the other point along a reasonably direct line” (Hines, 203-204). Because the Chicago plan concerned not only the city, but the suburbs as well, he planned for diagonal streets to connect the city with it’s suburbs, and circular roads to connect the suburbs with each other (Hines, 332). Burnham often called for the widening of roads in his plans, as evidenced by the Chicago plan, as well as his suggestion for the San Francisco plan to create the Panhandle, a very large road to connect Golden Gate Park to the civic cluster, as well as the bay further east (Hines, 183, 331). Contemporary planning typically does not encourage the construction of wide roads or the utilization of civic clusters for their grandeur, instead, the modern way is to plan at the human scale, making for a more compact and arguably more accessible city. Burnham thought public parks were very important, both for recreation to provide people with linkages to nature (Hines, 333). All of his plans called for the creation of additional parkland. At the World’s Columbian Exposition, the plan preserved a natural island at the center of a lagoon (Hines, 77). Part of the improvement to the National Mall in the McMillan plan included planting grass and lining it with elm trees (Hines, 153). Cleveland’s Civic Center was based around a similar green mall (Hines, 163). Burnham recommended several hilly areas in San Francisco, Telegraph Hill, Twin Peaks, and the Presidio all become parks (Hines, 185).
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