Kaupunkiluonto

The City beautiful planning thread as perfected or perverted in the embodiment of Daniel Burnham containing civic centres, large parks and large boulevards was modified into City practical planning by such planners as Charles Mulford Robinson (1869-1917), John Nolen (1869-1937) and Frederick Law Olmsted junior (1870-1957) with more concern to sanitary, social and health issues, housing conditions and traffic (Krueckeberg 1983, 280). Nolen, influenced by the Garden City ideals, maintained that the City beautification methods applied by his contemporaries were fatal. Instead he stressed social problems which were overlooked by the City Beautiful movement, suggesting that an adequate amount of open spaces to guarantee daily exercise was essential, and not only large city parks were sufficient for this but an easy enough access for everyone to local recreation areas had to be secured, thinking with Olmsted junior cities as complexes of interrelated neighbourhood parks (ibid., 72-98). In th...

Daniel Burnham, a man of no small plans, made the plan of the whole Chicago in 1909 (P. Hall 2002, 190). His starting point was the L´Enfant plan dating from 1791, including a great park, later mainly destroyed by roads and commercial land use. As seeking inspiration for the work, a three-man committee led by Burnham went to Europe to study the great European cities. One of the main principles of the plan was to provide parks to all the inhabitants of Chicago within walking distance, wanting Chicago to be the "Paris of the Prairie", idolising the Hausmann plan of Paris. Burnham recommended studying great European cities as examples of civic design and park planning (Scott 1971, 51). In many cases, park advocates argued that parks could –and should – replace morally dubious activities, such as pubs and amusement parks (Cranz 1982, 29). In Cleveland Burnham had a bold attempt in transforming the city from a rugged industrial town when appointed as the head of commission in 1902...