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Anthony DelRosario Natural Landscape and Built Form Professor Mark Thomas Master in Preservation Studies Tulane School of Architecture
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
The City Beautiful movement was a nationwide trend in landscaping at the turn of the 20th century led by architects and landscape architects to make cities in America as appealing as cities in Europe. The movement had its origins in the comprehensive planning ideas of Frank Law Olmstead. In addition to its landscaping and architectural concepts, the City Beautiful movement also had social and political aspects.
European Inspiration
The City Beautiful movement began as an attempt to bring American cities to a cultural parity with European counterparts using the Beaux-Arts style. Many of the top architects in the United States practicing during the second half of the 19th century had been trained at the cole Nationale Suprieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France including Richard Morris Hunt, Charles Follen McKim (of McKim, Mead, & White), and Henry Hobson Richardson. The Beaux-Arts style, considered dignified and beautiful, was embodied by such European architectural monuments as Nouvel Opra de Paris (Fig. 1) by Charles Garnier in Paris, France and Palais de Justice (Fig. 2) by Joseph Poelaert in Brussels, Belgium. The City Beautiful movement also looked to examples in Europe of broad public squares and avenues surrounded by buildings in a coordinated architectural style such as Trafalgar Square (Fig. 3) in London, England; Place Dom Pedro (Fig. 4) in Lisbon, Portugal; Place de la Concorde, Avenue des Champs-lyses, the Louvre, and Palais Royal (Fig. 5) in Paris, France; and Unter den Linden (Fig. 6) in Berlin, Germany. (groupplan.dhellison.com)
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
the firm Burnham & Root which was one of the leaders of the Chicago School, a group of architects that was responsible for many of the early skyscrapers. The area of the fairgrounds called the Court of Honor (Fig. 7) was also known as the White City. The neoclassical buildings (Figs. 8 & 9) were made of white stucco and the grounds were illuminated with street lights powered by electricity which were in contrast to the grey urban sprawl and blight of Chicago. (Rose) Not only was the White City dignified and monumental, it was also well-run: there was no poverty and no crime (so the visitors were led to believe), there were state-of-the-art sanitation and transportation systems, and the Columbian Guard kept everyone happily in their place. (Rose)
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
The architecture of the Worlds Fair Columbian Exhibition set American style preference in architecture for the next 20 to 25 years. Louis Sullivan, another top architect from Chicago, designed the Transportation Building (Figs. 11 & 12) at the exhibition, but not part of the Court of Honor, in a much more modern style. He complained that the reliance on European forms and the monumental idiom set native American architecture back decades. (Rose) The fair also introduced the concept of a monumental core or civic center, an arrangement of buildings intended to inspire in their beauty and harmony, as well as the beginnings of comprehensive city planning. (Rose)
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
The Senate Park Commission brought in several people that were involved with the White City including Daniel Burnham, Director of Construction of the fair; Charles McKim who designed the Agricultural Building; and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., son successor of Frederick Law Olmsted, site designer of the fair. Using their experience at the World's Fair as a jumping-off point, the commissioners sought to accomplish a number of goals: to obtain a sense of cultural parity with Europe; to establish themselves as cultural and societal leaders in the rapidly growing professional class; to revitalize Washington D.C.'s monumental core as an expression of continuity with the founding fathers as well as an expression of governmental legitimacy in a changing and confusing era of expansion; and finally, to utilize the beauty of the monumental center as a means of social control and civic amelioration. (Rose)
Fig. 13: The McMillan Plan (Daniel Burnham's 1901 plan for Washington, D.C.)
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
The plan looked monumental core, what would become the National Mall, which invoked European and classical forms in order to legitimize the power of the planners, the growing government, and America in the international arena. (Rose) The plan was hoped to build civic and national pride which would improve the city's and nation's economic and social problems. (Rose) When presented with the estimated budget, President Theodore Roosevelt expressed concerns of the cost, and today the legacy of the City Beautiful movement in Washington D.C., and throughout the country, is being felt even today in debates over city beautification versus economic redevelopment. (Rose)
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
Burnham also created a plan for San Francisco (Fig. 16) that was abandoned after the 1906 fire and later partially adapted for the civic center. Burnhams most ambitious design for a city was the Plan of Chicago (Fig. 17). Burnham envisioned a new Chicago as a Paris on the Prairie with French inspired public works constructions, fountains and boulevards radiating from a central, domed municipal palace. (architechgallery.com) The Plan of Chicago was the first comprehensive plan for the controlled growth of an American city. (biographybase.com)
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
Local Influence
In New Orleans, the City Beautiful movement was not utilized as an overall city plan. However, the Beaux-Arts style was reflected in a handfull of buildings. The Peristyle (1907) (Fig. 19) and the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art (1911) (Fig. 18), now the New Orleans Museum of Art, are two examples found in City Park. A third example of the style can be found in the French Quarter, the Louisiana State Supreme Court building (1910) (Fig. 20).
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LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
Conclusion
The City Beautiful movement continues to influence the city planning methods of today without the limit of the Beaux-Arts style. In addition to architecture and landscape influences, the reform ideas of the City Beautiful movement continue to have an impact on the socio-political discussions of today.
LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
Sources
"Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912)."
<http://www.architechgallery.com/arch_info/artists_pages/daniel_burnham_bio.html>.
Peterson, Jon A. "The Senate Park Commission Plan for Washington, D.C.: A New Vision for the Capital and the Nation."
<http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ncr/designing-capital/sec1.html>.
Rose, Julie K. "City Beautiful: The 1901 Plan for Washington D.C." <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/citybeautiful/city.html>.
Wilson, William H. The City Beautiful Movement: Creating the North American Landscape. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
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LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
Image Credits
Figure 1 Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, <http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/siege/docs/PAR00909.html> Figure 2 <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palace_of_Justice_postcard.jpg> Figure 3 Sights and Scenes of the World, Chicago: Conkey Publishing, 1894. via The D.H. Ellison Co., <http://groupplan.dhellison.com/precedents.php?ss=European > Figure 4 Sights and Scenes of the World Figure 5 Sights and Scenes of the World Figure 6 Sights and Scenes of the World Figure 7 "The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893," Paul V. Galvin Library Digital History Collection, Illinois Institute of Technology, <http://columbus.gl.iit.edu> Figure 8 "The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893" Figure 9 "The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893" Figure 10 "The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893" Figure 11 "The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893" Figure 12 "The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893" Figure 13 National Capital Planning Commission, <http://www.ncpc.gov/Images/Album_InspiredVisions/simages/pages/IV_McMilla n_jpg.htm> Figure 14 THE 1903 REPORT OF THE GROUP PLAN COMMISSION, to the Honorable Tom L. Johnson, Mayor, and the Honorable Board of Public Service via The D.H. Ellison Co., <http://grouplan.dhellison.com> Figure 15 Malaya Business News Online, <http://archive.malaya.com.ph/2010/May/05172010/liv2.html> Figure 16 Aerograph Co., Oakland, California, "Aeroplane View of City Hall and Civic Center, San Francisco, California ," in Environmental Design Archives Exhibitions, Item #181, <http://169.229.205.173/cedarchives/exhibitions/items/show/181> Figure 17 <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Burnham_1909_chicago_plan.jpg>
Anthony DelRosario Master in Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture
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LNSP 3300 - Natural Landscape and Built Form Mark Thomas November 10, 2010
Figure 18 Hikaru Iwasaki, Online Archive of California, <http://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft0r29n61d/?brand=oac4 > Figure 19 <www.linngroveiowa.org/New%20Orleans%20Peristyle%20City%20Park.jpg> Figure 20 Fifth Circuit Law Library Figure 21 imagiNATIVEamerica.com, <http://imaginativeamerica.com/okchistory/dunn_1910/img_dunn1910_005b_pos ter.pdf> Figure 22 - Carol M. Highsmith, <http://blog.aia.org/mt-tb.cgi/214>