Burnham Plan - Implementation

Implementation

Though Burnham died in 1912, Plan of Chicago was promoted by Commercial Club members and the Chicago Plan Commission they persuaded the mayor to appoint. Co-author Edward H. Bennett, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts, advised various public agencies as they constructed the projects recommended by the plan, using a design vocabulary reminiscent of 19th century Paris. Mayor William Hale Thompson, elected in 1915, used Plan of Chicago projects to promote his image as a Chicago booster, and as a rich source of public contracts.

The plan has been criticized for its focus on physical improvements, an attempt to create "Paris on the Prairie." Burnham's handwritten draft of the plan contained extensive discussion of social needs, but the final publication does not. The plan's list of big infrastructure improvements were badly needed by a rapidly growing city, at a time when an expanding tax base made it possible to undertake large projects.

Enthusiasm for the Burnham Plan's specific proposals faded with the onset of the Great Depression, but aspects of the plan continued to guide planners as they expanded parks, built new bridges, and laid out the city's superhighway network. Civic leaders still make frequent reference to Burnham's vision for the city, and to an aphorism posthumously attributed to him, the oft-quoted exhortation to "make no little plans."

• Plan of a park

• Diagram of a system of freight handling

• Suggested docks at the mouth of the Chicago River

• Suggested location and arrangement of railway passenger stations

• Theoretical diagram of street circulation

• Intersection of the three branches of the Chicago River