“Public buildings best serve the public by being beautiful.” – Cass Gilbert
The City Beautiful Movement was born and inspired in large part by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Following the American Civil War, cities across the country grew at a dramatic rate as a cause of the Industrial Revolution and high levels of immigration. City centers reflected this fast paced growth with overrun tenement buildings, unwelcoming municipal centers, and a lack of public parks and gardens. The “White City” of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago reminded America that a city must not only be a symbol of economic and industrial power but also an aesthetic and inspiring environment for the inhabitants.
Chicago World’s Fair, 1893.
Daniel Burnham, Director of Works for the Fair and an infamous list of architectural colleagues designed an exposition that combined progress and ingenuity with balance and beauty. Commissioned architects included Charles Atwood, Richard Morris Hunt, McKim, Mead & White, Solon Spencer Beman, Adler & Sullivan, George B. Post, and many more as well as Frederick Law Olmsted in charge of grounds. The predominantly Beaux-Arts style of architecture and expansive gardens offered America a vision of a human approach to urban planning.
Louis Sullivain and Frank Lloyd Wright offered dissenting opinions to the Fair aesthetic and the movement in general. They desired to develop a uniquely American styled architecture rather than, as they saw it, borrow designs of the Old-World. However, the intent was not to recreate European architecture in America but to capture and celebrate in an American fashion a very long history of the Western tradition, which is at the root of American government, law, and general culture. In this way, Burnham and his compatriots saw America as the rightful heir to Western culture.
In the years after the World’s Fair, American cities from East to West devised city plans to beautify their urban areas. Burnham received commissions across the country and participated on numerous boards promoting the idea that the open air of parks; clean, beautiful streets; and recreational opportunities make for happy and healthy communities. Burnham was hired to develop a plan for San Francisco which was famously realized in the Civic Center including impressive buildings such as the War Memorial Opera House and City Hall. In 1945, the inaugural meeting of the United Nations took place at the Opera House, where representatives from 50 nations gathered to draft the charter. The Opera House is regarded as the birthplace of the UN. The fruits of the movement may also be studied in the McMillan Plan to revitalize L’Enfant’s plans for Washington, D.C. which included a comprehensive redesign of Capitol Hill’s surrounding buildings, parks and monuments. The construction of railway stations, museums, libraries, courthouses, and capitol buildings swept the Nation.
San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, CA (left) & Boston Public Library, MA (right)
Elegant renaissance revival buildings rose from the ground to grace little town centers and grand metropolises. The fruits of the movement may be studied in just about any center of commerce or government. The movement was not limited to architecture. Quite the contrary, architects and planners of the era employed renowned artists and designers to collaborate on the interior decoration. Charles McKim’s Boston Public Library brought together some of the finest American muralists including Edward Austin Abbey, John Singer Sargent, Elmer Garnsey among others. Puvis de Chevannes, was the one exception, he executed the work on canvas in his Paris studio, while his assistants brought the murals to Boston and installed them in the Grand staircase and loggia of the library. Cass Gilbert completed what he considered his best work at the Minnesota State Capitol brought onsite artists Edwin Blashfield, Elmer Garnsey, Arthur Willett, Henry Oliver Walker, John La Farge, Howard Pyle, Francis Millet and numerous others. Interestingly, Gilbert died before the interior decoration and artwork at West Virginia State Capitol could be completed but the State always intended to complete the original intent of the architect. Finally decades later, John Canning & Company was commissioned to complete the several large lunette paintings to complete the rotunda design and honor Gilbert’s opinion, “that architecture, painting and sculpture were so closely akin that the highest form of art would be the combination of them all.”
West Virginia State Capitol Exterior Dome (left) & Minnesota State Capitol Interior (right)
Railway Stations were an important part of city planning since these interiors were understood to be the city’s first impression on newcomers. Burnham himself designed Union Station in Washington D.C. to welcome travelers to the Nation’s Capital. The famous Grand Central Terminal and Old Pennsylvania Station (demolished) in New York City were also designed in response to this beautification movement. And though New York City has lost the once magnificent Penn Station, City Beautiful Movement itself is hope for revival even when something is as ugly and desperate as the current Penn Station/Madison Square Garden complex and the ugliness it seems to encourage in its surroundings. Even now there are efforts to restore Penn Station in order to properly welcome travelers to the great city of New York.
Grand Central Terminal, NY (left) & Washington Union Station, DC (right)
Just over one hundred years ago, cities across America looked out at an ugly freight station and envisioned a museum. They studied the crowded tenements to design sprawling parks. City Beautiful profoundly declares beauty as an essential element in human construction and everyday life. The Movement is an inspiring moment in American architectural history because the populace made a determined effort to beautify their surroundings for the greater good and health of the community. The simple directness of the movement, “City Beautiful” encapsulates the entire philosophy; since beauty inspires local pride as well as encourages stewardship and care of an area.
