San Francisco Center Heart of City Beautiful Movement

http://courthousehistory.com/gallery/states/california/counties/san-francisco

The City Beautiful Movement arrived in San Francisco in 1904 when former mayor James Duval Phelan invited Daniel Burnham to town.  Burnham the architect of the Chicago World's Fair White City, was a student of classicism and the Beaux Arts.  He recommended a Civic Center at the heart of the city with boulevards radiating from it.  A landscaped park would begin at the Civic Center and extend to the Golden Gate Park panhandle.  A neo-classic library would overlook the Pacific Ocean.

The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 was a cloud with a silver lining.  Much of the city was destroyed but this now gave the city planners a blank canvas to work with.  The final say, however, would be up to the merchants.  The City Hall and the Exposition Auditorium were both completed in time for the Pan Pacific Exposition of 1915, an exhibit that Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder visited and wrote about in West From Home.  The War Memorial Opera House, the War Memorial Veterans Building, the Main Library and the State and Old Federal Buildings were completed in the 1920's and 1930's.  A central park, or civic center, brought all of the buildings together.  A reflective pool, surrounded by columns of London Plane trees, was the focus of the park.  Two banks, the Savings Union Bank and the Wells Fargo Bank, reflect the Beaux Arts design.

Expo Auditorium courtesy https://johnwright.smugmug.com/Military/Historical/Old-Military-Photographs/i-GBJ4M44.

Cleveland: Part of the City Beautiful Movement

https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/56#.WOfHmGnyuM8

Daniel Burnham, who designed the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, also designed a plan for the city of Cleveland in 1903.  The plan was part of the City Beautiful Movement of the early 1900's which believed that "beautification, personified by ample park space and grand, dignified buildings, would instill civic and moral virtue in city residents and revitalize urban areas that were increasingly perceived by the wealthy as undesirable places to work and live."(https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/56#.WOfHmGnyuM8)

Following the Roman Classicism School of Beaux Arts, Burnham sketched out six buildings clustered around a Mall, similar to the Washington Mall.  The buildings included:

• the Federal Building of 1910 (now the Howard Metzenbaum US Courthouse
• the Cuyahoga County Courthouse (1911)
• City Hall (1916)
• Public Auditorium (1922)
• Cleveland Public Library (1926)
• The Board of Education Building (1930)
• a 7th building, the Cuyahoga Administration Building (1957) was torn down in 2014 to make way for a Hilton Hotel

While Cleveland has lost much of its former glory and population after the decline of the steel industry, all six buildings from the original city plan remain intact.  For more information about Cleveland, visit http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2013/09/cleveland-mistake-on-lake-vs-best.html.

Cayuhoga County Courthouse courtesy https://www.bluffton.edu/homepages/facstaff/sullivanm/ohio/cleveland/courthouse/courthouse.html.

The Chicago Plan: Paris of the Prairie

"The lakefront belongs to the people.  Not a foot of its shores should be appropriated to the exclusion of its people." (Daniel Burnham)

The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 held in Chicago helped spark America's City Beautiful Movement.  Architect Daniel Burnham planned the Exposition grounds, featuring the White City, and known for its grand boulevards, classical building facades, monuments and lush gardens.  His style, Classicism, was adopted for the next 15 years in cities like Washington D.C., Cleveland and San Francisco.  For more information about The World's Columbian Exposition, visit http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2014/07/july-1.html.

World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago circa 1893 courtesy https://www.pinterest.com/oasispam/meet-mythamerica-1893-columbian-exposition/.

Daniel Burnham, who studied cities in Europe, co-designed the 1909 Chicago Plan, a sort of "Paris on the Prairie".  Burnham, whose motto was "Make no little plans", called for:  lakefront improvements, a regional highway system, railway terminal improvements, new outer parks, systemic arrangement of streets and civic or cultural centres. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnham_Plan_of_Chicago)

Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry, the former Palace of Fine Arts from the World's Columbian Exposition circa 1893 courtesy 

http://www.chicagotraveler.com/attractions/museum-of-science-and-industry.html.

The Chicago Plan recommended using landfill to expand its lakefront, a plan which was implemented.  Today, only 4 miles out of the 29 lakefront miles are not public parkland.  Locals and tourists walk or cycle along the lakefront.  Sailboats anchor offshore.  Chicago's lakefront is one of its best features.

Chicago's lakefront courtesy 

http://www.keyword-suggestions.com/Y2hpY2FnbyBsYWtlZnJvbnQ/.

As for the systemic arrangement of Chicago's streets, many of the planned recommendations were followed.  The city widened and extended Michigan Ave, the famous shopping boulevard.  Roosevelt Road was also widened.  Wacker Drive and Congress Parkway were created.

Burnham proposed a cultural centre in Grant Park, a plan that was shot down due to a Supreme Court decision not to build any further in the Park.  However, Burnham's partner, Edward Bennett, designed the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, influenced by a similar fountain at the Palace of Versailles in France.  The rococo wedding cake style fountain was the biggest in the world at the time of its construction in 1927.  For more information about Grant Park, visit http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2014/07/july-12.html.

Buckingham Fountain courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckingham_Fountain#/media/File:Buckingham_Fountain_in_Chicago_at_night.jpg/