Plans of Chicago

This year Chicago celebrates the centennial of the publication of the visionary "Plan of Chicago". Daniel Burnham and his coauthor, Edward Bennett, reimagined the American city as a vibrant, interconnected whole. Their Plan is responsible for much of Chicago's public character, including its open lakefront and expansive park system. "Plans of Chicago", the inaugural publication of the Chicago-based Architects Research Foundation, uses the 1909 Plan as a point of departure for a proposed reconnection of Chicago's center to its outlying suburbs. As in Burnham's Plan, the improved transportation and park systems proposed here would make Chicago both 'the city that works' and a 'City Beautiful'. Robert Samuel Roche and Aric Lasher begin with a careful assessment of the Burnham Plan's orgins, principles, and implementation. Along the way they identify Chicago's persistent planning problems, and then compare the "Plan of Chicago" to other proposals, including those by Frank Lloyd Wright, Jens Jensen, Walter Burley Griffin, Eliel Saarinen, and Ludwig Hilberseimer. This historical analysis is the springboard for a new plan to manage Chicago's future growth. The authors reframe the central city's relationship to the larger Chicago area, proposing new designs for Grant Park and Congress Street and new planning models for urban neighborhoods and the suburbs. With 130 exquisite illustrations, including full-color reproductions of Jules Guerin's famous watercolors - collected here for the first time - as well as original drawings by Aric Lasher, "Plans of Chicago" is the first in a series by the nonprofit Foundation on Chicago architecture and urbanism. Its practical, viable proposals for city living chart a path for Chicago's future.

Robert Samuel Roche has worked at Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge Architects since 2007. Aric Lasher is an architect principal with Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge Architects.