Burnham, Daniel H.

Architect Daniel H. Burnham (1846–1912) was born in Hudson, New York. After unsuccessful attempts to study at Yale and Harvard, Burnham served an apprenticeship under the noted designer William LeBaron Jenney (1832–1907) in Chicago. After learning his trade under the tutelage of LeBaron Jenney, Burnham gained employment in the early 1870s at the Chicagobased office of Carter, Drake and Wright, where he met John Wellborn Root (1850–1891). With Root, Burnham designed many edifices, including one of America's earliest skyscrapers, the Masonic Temple Building in Chicago, and in so doing helped establish the partners in the famous Chicago School of Design.

With Root's premature death, Burnham was left with the task of continuing alone, including planning the World's Columbian Exposition (1893) in Chicago, a huge celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival on the North American continent. Furthermore, following Root's death Burnham opened himself up to less pragmatic and more classically formed design styles. Greece and Rome became his new models, and Burnham became integral in America's Classical Revival. Through his work at the World's Columbian Exposition, Burnham demonstrated to the American public the virtues of a largescale, orderly and clean, planned environment—the event thus being the first major example of comprehensive planning in the United States. With grandly designed buildings, broad boulevards, and monumental vistas, Burnham helped to propagate notions of rational Beaux Arts planning and publicize neo-classical architectural forms in the United States. Visitors to the exposition could not help but be impressed by the event's environment, and consequently many public and private clients of American architects sought something similar.

Due to his applauded successes, Burnham played a central role within the City Beautiful Movement which from the 1890s sought to create modern beauty in the American urban environment through the use of classically styled buildings and formal civic center schemes. The movement marked an important stage in the development of landscape architecture, municipal improvement, and civic design in modern American history and, as noted previously, the 1893 Columbian Exposition had a major impact not only on the City Beautiful Movement but also on the American public, as did Burnham's subsequent Plan for Chicago (1909), with Edward H. Bennett—the first modern attempt in America to plan and control the growth of a large metropolis. As the leading planning authority of early-20th-century America, Burnham also became involved in significant projects in cities such as Washington, D.C., Cleveland, and San Francisco. The large scale typified Burnham's work, and he somewhat infamously remarked, “Make no little plans, as they have no magic to stir men's blood.” Consequently, his planning schemes were often huge and his buildings high. At the time of his death, Burnham was of such professional standing that he had the largest architectural office in the world. His significance within American architectural and planning history remains to this day.