Plate 49 from Plan of Chicago 1909: Chicago. View of the City from Jackson Park to Grant Park, Looking Towards the West. The proposed shore treatment as a park enclosing a waterway (or a series of lagoons) is shown, together with the enlarged yacht harbor, recreation piers, and a scheme for Grant Park.
Medium
Watercolor with graphite on cream wove paper, discolored to tan, laid down on canvas
Dimensions
103.5 × 480 cm (40 3/4 × 189 in.)
Classification
paper
Department
Architecture and Design
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
196323
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
“Make no little plans,” Daniel H. Burnham reputedly exclaimed around the time he unveiled his Plan of Chicago, the first comprehensive metropolitan plan in the United States. Providing the vocabulary for Chicago architecture through the 1920s, the project was the legacy of Burnham, whose renown in large-scale city planning began when he was chief of construction for Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Commissioned by the Commercial Club of Chicago, the plan was developed with the assist...
About the Artist
Daniel Hudson Burnham · 1846–1912
Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846–1912) was one of the most influential American architects and urban planners of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Born in Henderson, New York, he twice failed the entrance examinations for Harvard and Yale, eventually finding his calling through an apprenticeship in architecture. His transformative partnership with John Wellborn Root, formed in Chicago in 1873, establ...