Dear Coalition Friends:

See below the press release announcing the September 6th broadcast on PBS of the documentary on architect Daniel Burnham and an article about the film in Architectural Record magazine. 

Some of us saw this fascinating film during the open-air screening on the National Mall last June.  This is what we wrote in our June 4th UPDATE alerting readers to that event: 

Burnham was a member of the Senate Park "McMillan" Commission that created the 1901-1902 Plan for the National Mall, which shaped Mall development for almost a century.  Before Washington, Burnham worked on the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  After Washington, he designed the 1909 Plan for Chicago.  The film offers fascinating insights on Burnham's life as well as turn-of-the-twentieth-century America out of which the grand visions for Chicago and Washington arose. 

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Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City

Arlington, VA (July 6, 2010) PBS announced today that MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS: DANIEL BURNHAM AND THE AMERICAN CITY, a new one-hour documentary by The Archimedia Workshop will air on Labor Day, Monday September 6, 2010, 10PM EST on PBS. The program is written, directed and produced by Judith Paine McBrien. Noted media arts organization Kartemquin Films and scriptwriter Geoffrey Ward consulted on the project.

MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS: DANIEL BURNHAM AND THE AMERICAN CITY is the story of a dreamer who shaped some of America’s best-known places and spaces. The film explores Burnham’s fascinating career and complex legacy as public debate continues today about how and for whom cities are planned. 

Narrated by Oscar nominated actress Joan Allen, MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS combines digital models, original drawings, personal letters, animated graphics and stunning visuals to highlight dramatic developments that transformed both Burnham and the American city-- the early development of the skyscraper; the awesome impact of the 1893 World’s Fair; and the physical reconfiguration of existing cities, including our nation’s capital.

Insightful commentary by some of the country’s most distinguished historians, architects, critics and urban planners enlivens the story as does an original musical score by composer Michael Bacon, who is well-known to PBS audiences.

“He had a personality that was as big as the subject of cities”, explains architect David Childs, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and one of many noted commentators in the film.  “We should care about Burnham because he was part of a group that changed ideas about planning and architecture and because of the fact that our cities are full of the history that he caused to happen.”

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"City Beautiful" Comes Alive in Daniel Burnham Documentary

August 31, 2010
By Carl Yost

After the overreaching of Modern city planning—barren plazas, rows of soulless apartment slabs—urban design got a bad rap. But as suggested in the documentary Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City, when ambitious visions are tempered with civic sensitivity, great things can happen.

The film, which premieres nationally on PBS on Labor Day, September 6 (check local listings for times), recounts the life of Chicago architect Daniel Burnham (1846-1912), famous for designing the Flatiron Building in New York, Union Station in Washington, D.C., and the landmark 1909 master plan for Chicago. He pioneered the skyscraper form, then introduced the City Beautiful to cities across the United States and the Philippine Islands; along the way, he practically invented not only the large, corporate architecture firm, but also the very discipline of urban planning.

Judith Paine McBrien, the writer, director, and producer of the documentary, has developed several films about Chicago, and she found that Burnham kept coming up in each one. “A lot of people in Chicago know the name,” she said, “but you get outside the Midwest and people aren’t as familiar with what he’s done.” With the Plan of Chicago's centennial occurring in 2009, the time was ripe to revisit his work. In fact, the film was shown last September in Chicago’s Millennium Park, along the lakefront that Burnham was instrumental in preserving.

With drawings, archival photos, contemporary footage, and a fly-through animation of the “White City” at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the documentary examines Burnham’s architectural achievements. But his legacy extends beyond the built environment. He identified with the Progressive movement, and the film emphasizes some of the social programs he suggested in an early draft of the Chicago plan. He also gave freely of his time and wealth. “There are a lot of architects and planners who have looked beyond their own offices,” says Tomas S. Hines, a UCLA professor of history and architecture and Burnham’s biographer. “But no one to my mind has yet come up to Burnham’s generosity as a philanthropist and a leader of causes, and as a founder of institutions,” such as the American Academy in Rome.

“Burnham was interested in the city not only as a physical artifact,” says Howard Decker, FAIA, a planner and project director with Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, “but as a social and cultural artifact.” Decker, who appears on-camera, notes that Burnham addressed many of the challenges that face architects and planners today: population growth, sprawl, environmental degradation. “It’s another reason to go back and look at the city Burnham was interested in—it’s the city before the Modern city. Maybe it’s an appropriate model to undo some of the damage we’ve done.”