About This Artwork

Jules Guerin, delineator; American, 1866-1946
Edward Herbert Bennett, architect; American, born England, 1874-1954
Daniel Hudson Burnham, architect; American, 1846-1912

Plan of Chicago, Plate 87: View Looking West Over the City, Showing the Proposed Civic Center, the Grand Axis, Grant Park, and the Harbor, 1907

Watercolor and graphite on paper
Approx. 140 x 230 cm
Initialed and dated at right center edge, "G.J. Dec-1907"
Gift of Patrick Shaw, 1991.1381

Architects Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett created a master plan for Chicago published in 1909 proposing that Chicago could be as beautiful as any European city as well as commercially successful. Spectacular presentation drawings were executed to help convey the ideas in the Plan of Chicago. Some of the most beautiful visions for the future city were executed by New York renderer Jules Guérin.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Art Institute of Chicago Burnham Library, Plan of Chicago: 1909-1979, Dec. 8, 1979–Nov. 30, 1970, cat. no. 87.

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architecture and Design, 1872-1922: Birth of a Metropolis, cat. no. 228, plate 78; traveled to Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Oct. 2, 1987–Jan. 4, 1988; Frankfurt am Main, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Feb. 5-Apr. 25, 1988; and Art Institute of Chicago, July 16–Sept. 5, 1988.

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago's Dream, A World's Treasure, 1993.

Paris, Centre de Creation Industrielle (CCI), Centre Georges Pompidou, Visions Urbaines, 1870-1990, Feb. 9–May 9, 1994.

Art Institute of Chicago, D.H. Burnham and Mid-American Classicism, 1996.

Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, At the End of the Century: One Hundred Years of Architecture, 1998-2000

Publication History

Burnham, Daniel H. and Edward H. Bennett, ed. Charles Moore. Plan of Chicago. Chicago: The Commercial Club of Chicago, 1908, plate 87. Also see 1993 reprint by Princeton Architectural Press.

Art Institute of Chicago, 1979. Plan of Chicago: 1909-1979. Exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago, cat. no. 87, p. 36.

Zukowsky, John, and Martha Thorne. 2004. Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture. Art Institute of Chicago/Rizzoli, pp. 54–55.