Day 46: The Man with The Plan

     Before we get too terribly far into this year-long journey, I think we should all pause for a moment to acknowledge one of the men who was responsible for making Chicago the way it is today.  I am of course referring to Daniel Burnham.  If you ask any Chicagoan about Burnham, you'll probably hear something about "making no small plans", and maybe something about some plan that came out in 1909.  Those are both truisms, but to be frank, they don't scratch the surface of what Burnham was all about.

     Daniel Burnham was born in 1846 in New York, and was raised in Chicago.  He initially applied for admission to both Harvard and Yale, but was denied to admittance to both places. Eventually he entered into an apprenticeship with William Jenney, the man responsible for the first skyscraper ever built(which just so happened to be in Chicago).  After that, he moved into working at a firm by the name of Carter, Duke, and Wright.  It was here where he would meet his future business partner John Root.  While partnered with Root, he would design the Masonic Temple Building, one of the first skyscrapers in the country, as well as the tallest building ever at the time of its construction.  Root died in 1891, and the firm was renamed to D.H. Burnham & Company.

     In 1892, the Burnham company was commissioned to work on the new flagship store for Marshall Field & Co.(a building that stands to this day.)  Then comes 1893.  In that year, the World's Columbian Expostion was awarded to Chicago.  The responsibility for constructing what would become the White City fell upon Burnham's company.  Mr. Burnham teamed up with Louis Sullivan, Frederick Law Olmstead, and other prominent architects to realize the dream of the White City in a Classical Revival style. Eventually, the design became so popular that it was reinterpreted as the legendary Beaux-Arts style.

     However, Burnham's most well-known legacy would not come around for more than 15 years.  In 1909, Burnham co-authored "The Plan of Chicago"(which had been in the works for 3 years.)  In it, he laid out his plans for the future of the city.  This was the first time anything like this had been attempted for an American city.  The concept recalled a "Paris on the Prairie", where fountains and boulevards would radiate from a central municipal palace, and also where every citizen would be within walking distance of a park.  Ultimately, only parts of the plan were implemented, but Burnham's plan set the tone for both city planning and the future development of Chicago. Some of his other well-known legacies are a plan for San Francisco as well as the building of Washington D.C.'s Union Station

     One of Burnham's most oft-repeated quotes is "Make no little plans.  They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized."  Interestingly enough, there is no solid evidence that he actually said these words.  Daniel Burnham's legacy is carried forward to this day through the firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, which is what his firm was renamed to in 1917.  They have continued his legacy by erecting a laundry list of buildings essential to the Chicago we know today.