Jay Wickersham LEARNING FROM BURNHAM: THE ORIGINS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE Left: Daniel Burnham. From John Graf, Chicago's Parks, 62 Right: Louis Sullivan and Wife. Photo: Chicago Architectural Photographing Co. bi Harvard Design Magazine 32, Spring/Summer 20b0 Over the past 100 years, the practice of architecture has other firms in disciplines ranging from struc tural engin - undergone some radical shifts. Individual practitioners eer ing to acoustics to specification writing. 6 have, for the most part, been supplanted by firms. What To see how these two developments in American prac - used to be an art and a craft has evolved into a govern - tice came about, we must go back to Chicago in the 1880s ment-regulated profession. Like all revolutions, the and 1890s, where modern ideas of practice were born. funda mental transformation of architectural practice has Chicago is a birthplace for architectural Modernism— represented both improvements and losses. But for better both artistically, through the work of designers such as or for worse, this revolution in practice has been as pro - Louis Sullivan, John Wellborn Root, and Frank Lloyd found as the Modernist revolutions in the aesthetics Wright, and technologically, through the development of design and the technologies of building construction. of the skeleton frame and curtain wall. But Chicago is Viewed from the perspective of history, contemporary equally important to the development of modern practice models of practice start to look remarkably new and un - and professionalism. Here we first find the combination stable. In the United States, modern conceptions of of an outward-looking professional organization, govern - practice, like Modernism itself, first took recognizable mental licensing based on education and examination, form just over 100 years ago and were adopted as ortho - a standard legal form of owner-architect agreement, doxy only after World War II. I will focus on two key the opening of the profession to women, and large firms develop ments: the professionalization of architecture serving commercial clients on a national and international and the emergence of large architectural firms. 1 scale. The central figure in these developments was In both cases, the last century shows a sharp break Daniel Burnham, the man vilified by Sullivan and Wright with the past. Mary Woods’s From Craft to Profession as the archenemy of progressive design. Yet Burnham depicts the primitive state of American practice at the end should be recognized as the father of modern archi - of the 19th century. Architecture was entirely unregulated tectural practice. until Illinois passed the first licensing law in 1897. The New York–based American Institute of Architects was The WAA model of practice and professionalism a small clubby organization. Dominated by East Coast The Chicago concept of practice displays a confidence establishment figures, it represented fewer than 10% that artistic achievement, business acumen, and pro - of architects nationwide, and it opposed government fessionalism are not opposing values—each reinforces licensing of architects. The nine university programs the others. Establishing this concept was the Western in architecture founded before 1900 graduated only a Association of Architects (WAA), founded in Chicago in handful of students; almost all practicing architects had 1884 as a rival to the New York–based AIA. During its five- been trained on the job. Most architects practiced by year existence (the WAA merged with the AIA in 1889), the themselves or with one or two assistants; larger firms had organization articulated a progressive program. Burnham just started to appear in New York, Boston, and Chicago. 2 was the first chair of the WAA’s board of directors; Today, the practice of architecture is fully regulated in Sullivan was the other director from Chicago. 7 Sullivan’s every American state. University education, offered in 117 partner, Dankmar Adler, chaired the important committee accredited schools, has become almost the sole gateway on legislation and served as WAA president in 1886; into the profession. 3 The AIA represents about 60% of Burnham’s partner, John Root, served as president in the nation’s approximately 100,000 licensed architects, 4 1887. 8 After the merger, Burnham would win election as and it is headquartered in Washington to more effectively the AIA president in 1893. 9 lobby the federal government. Equally important, the The proceedings of the second WAA convention, practice of architecture has shifted from the individual to held in November 1885, deserve to be as well known the organization. Large firms with a staff of fifty or more as the CIAM charters, for they form a document with employ 44% of the architectural workforce and receive a comparable influence on how architecture is made over 50% of the total revenues for architectural services — today. 10 Adler, as chair of the committee on legislation, a figure that has more than doubled since 1972. 5 Building presented a proposed law regulating the practice of designs that are published and praised as the creations of architecture. To receive a license from the state registra - individual architects such as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, tion board, an architect would have to hold a college or Zaha Hadid are actually produced by large limited liabi - degree, have been trained for four years under another lity firms, employing hundreds or thousands of trained architect, and have passed the board’s examination. 11 and skilled employees, and collaborating with dozens of It would take more than a decade, but in 1897 a version of Learning from Burnham bj Adler and Sullivan, Auditorium Tower , floor plan of the firm's office space, Chicago, Illinois, 1889. From Mary N. Woods, Craft to Profession, 117. the WAA proposal was passed by the Illinois legislature nonexistent. 14 The competitive business environment as the world’s first architectural licensing law. stimulated the design innovations of Chicago architects. Adler’s committee also developed the first standard But it also meant the constant risk of fires and building contract between architects and clients, including a collapses caused by shoddy construction, abetted by clause protecting the architect’s copyright in drawings. 12 graft. Architects faced competition from builders who This WAA document is the progenitor of today’s standard would offer clients cheap or free design services. In this AIA contract forms. And on the recommendation of world, financial success was the foundation of influence Burnham and the board of directors, the convention and power. Adler summarized the situation in a speech unani mously voted to accept women architects as equal to his colleagues: “I believe in a business community members—starting with Louise Blanchard Bethune from like this, it is the body that appears to have the money Buffalo, New York. 13 that is respected…. If we wish to see the time when a One must view the WAA model of practice and pro - person in order to practice as an architect must pass an fessionalism in context. Chicago in the 1880s was a new examina tion, we must appear before legislative bodies, phenomenon: one of the first fast-growing megacities, and before the public as men of standing, and we are not doubling in population every ten years. The real-estate so consi dered unless we have demonstrated our ability market was wracked by boom and bust cycles. Govern - to earn money.” 15 ment regulation of the building industry was lax or 20 Harvard Design Magazine 32, Spring/Summer 20b0 The WAA addressed these challenges with a shrewd Burnham and large firm practice mix of idealism and self-interest. Government licensing of Daniel Burnham’s innovation in creating the first large architects would protect the public against shoddy design national architectural firm was as important as his leader - and construction. The WAA conventions showed a broad ship of the WAA and the AIA. Other large firms emerged consensus that ethical standards should prevent archi - in late-19th-century America: McKim, Mead and White in tects from acting as builders, or taking payments from New York may have been the first to have 100 employ - contractors and suppliers. The same ethical conception of ees. 19 But Burnham was unique in the range of his architects as trusted, disinterested professionals would practice achievements. He recognized that firm manage - require them to act as fair and neutral arbiters in deciding ment required complementary artistic, professional, job site disputes between owner and contractor, even if and business skills, and he brought together a leadership the decision might go against the architect’s client. 16 team with the necessary mix of talents. At the staff Entrusting design to a regulated and ethical professional level, Burnham applied mass-production principles of elite would raise aesthetic standards and accustom special ized labor and the sequencing of tasks, similar the public to demanding better design. The legislative to those Henry Ford would develop for manufacturing. committee report has a paternalistic tone: “We wish our The European Modernists were fascinated with the impli - fellow citizens to concede that we possess superior know - cations of mass production and Fordism for building ledge in our profession and to submit to our guidance in construction, but it was Burnham and his American all matters relating to their building interests.” 17 contemporaries who understood the power of applying At the same time, restricting architectural practice to these principles to the design process. 20 a limited body of licensed professionals would strengthen Burnham had little to show for himself in 1873 when their hand economically and support the push for a he joined with Root, a recent engineering graduate of New standard architectural fee schedule, to be set at 5% to 6% York University, to found an architectural firm. 21 He had of the construction cost.