interest in city planning and great civic enterprise. Burn- 

 ham, who coined the slogan so dear to every city planner's 

 heart — "Make no small plans, they have no magic to stir 

 man's blood," rightly believed that Chicago would never 

 again have the opportunity to devise a grand plan for the 

 city, so he set about to devise such a plan. 



According to Architectural Foriim,^ "The 1909 Burnham 

 Plan for Chicago'' is the classic American master plan. It 

 was not the first of its kind. But in its time it was the most 



structure in the world has ever had a nobler setting than 

 this would be." 



Burnham's plan placed the Museum at Congress Street, 

 directly behind what is now Buckingham Fountain. The 

 Museum's east steps were to lead right to the water's edge 

 where Burnham envisioned a brilliantly-lighted yacht basin, 

 surrounded by floating islands reachable only by boat. On 

 the west, the Museum was to face the fountain and beyond 

 that the Confjress Street axis reaching west to Civic Centre 



Corner slone ceremony, September 28, 

 1911. The Staff of Field Museum of 

 Natural History. 



thorough appraisal of a city ever made, and its proposals 

 envisioned the most complete redevelopment of a city till 

 then attempted. And looking at the Burnham Plan today, 

 it is astounding that so much of it was realized. 



"Indeed, most of the major features of today's Chicago 

 are products of the plan : the grand boulevard development 

 of Michigan Avenue, the elegant foundations and the ter- 

 races of Grant Park, the double-decked Wacker Drive and 

 bridges across the Chicago River, the axial cut of the Con- 

 gress Street Expressway, and the long string of lagooned 

 parks to the north and south along the lake. Even the 90- 

 degree turns on the Outer Drive at the crossing of the Chi- 

 cago River mark an incomplete stage of the plan, which was 

 faithfully followed up through World War II." 



However, as was to be expected, much of Burnham's 

 plan was not realized. In a speech introducing his plan to 

 the noted Merchants Club, Biu-nham said, "The principal 

 feature of the Grant Park should be the Field Columbian 

 Museum, which should lie in the center of it, leaving a 

 parade ground on the north and a playground on the south 

 of it." 



He went on, "Pictine to yourselves a stately white mu- 

 seum, resting on the Grand Terrace called the Lake Front, 

 and dominating all the elements of it; the lawns, the foun- 

 tains, the monuments, all of which should be placed so as 

 to have some reference to that particular building. No 



' .irchitfclural Forum, May, 1962, p. 108. 



Square at Halsted Street. 



Obviously, the location of the Field Museum was a facet 

 of Burnham's plan that went awry. A provision in Marshall 

 Field's will gave the Museum $4,000,000 "for a building to 

 be erected upon a site to be furnished for that purpose, pro- 

 vided a suitable one is procured within six years from the 

 date of Mr. Field's death." The Board of Trustees, led by 

 Stanley Field, who was the driving force behind the con- 

 struction of the building, immediately began negotiations 

 for the desired Grant Park site. However, opposition to 

 placing any building in the park developed, and following 

 extended legal negotiations, the central Grant Park site was 

 abandoned. 



In 1911, after considering several proposed sites in vari- 

 ous parts of Chicago, the Board accepted a site in Jackson 

 Park immediately north of the old building for construction 

 of the new building. A contract was entered into and prep- 

 arations begun for construction. Steel was at the site, the 

 marble was being quarried and collections of the Depart- 

 ment of Geology were moved from the west annex, where 

 they had been housed, to the central part of the building 

 when, in 1914, the South Park Commissioners offered a site 

 in the reclaimed area just south of Grant Park. 



The offer was accepted, the steel and marble transferred, 

 and on July 26, 1915 construction work began. Rather than 

 breaking ground, Thompson-Starrett, the builders, had to 

 begin by filling ground. The natural elevation of the site 



Page 10 M.AY 



