Daniel Hudson Burnham

Daniel Hudson Burnham , 1846-1912, American architect and city planner b. Henderson, N.Y. He was trained in architects' offices in Chicago. In that city he established (1873) a partnership with John W. Root and soon gained many of the most important architectural commissions of the day. Their Chicago works include the Monadnock Building; the 20-story Masonic Temple Building (1892), the first important skeleton skyscraper; the Reliance Building; and the "Rookery" offices. Among their other works were the Flatiron Building and the Wanamaker store in New York City, Union Station in Washington, D.C., and buildings in Cleveland, Buffalo, and San Francisco.

Burnham and Root also designed the general plan for Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition (1893) and through it exerted an enormous influence upon contemporaneous civic design. In 1901, Burnham served with C. F. McKim , F. L. Olmsted, Jr., and Augustus Saint-Gaudens on the Senate Park Commission in planning for the future beautification of Washington, D.C. With E. H. Bennett he created a civic improvement plan of great importance for Chicago (1907), much of which has since been put into execution. He also prepared plans for Baltimore, Duluth, and San Francisco, and was commissioned by the U.S. government to design plans for Manila and other cities in the Philippines.

Bibliography: See studies by T. Hines (1974, 1979) and K. Schaffer (2003).

Burnham, Daniel Hudson (1846–1912) US architect and city planner. With his partner John W. Root, Burnett pioneered the development of early steel-frame and modern commercial architecture. Designs include the Reliance Building (1890) and the Masonic Temple Building (1891), both in Chicago.