World’s Fair ‘City Beautiful’ Turned Into An Aesthetic Movement
Daniel Burnham was frustrated with the architecture of Chicago, which was a mish-mash of styles, heights, and setbacks. His City Beautiful movement tried to fix that problem. City Beautiful, as an artistic movement, was based on the idea that there should be some common ideas applied in urban design. The first idea was unity in architecture, or how the buildings are designed (ideally in the Beaux Arts form), unity of plan, or how buildings related to one another. Next is unity in architecture, where building designs should complement each other in size, look, and massing, even if they aren’t identical. And finally, the scale of all elements should be in harmony, meaning tall or small, building or boulevard trees, every element in the design should contribute to the overall look and feel of the urban space.