Paradigm or pariah? : an architectural intervention into Daniel Burnham's timeless plan of Chicago

Abstract

This thesis is not a eulogy to but an analysis of and contemporary intervention into Daniel Hudson Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago. It presses the boundary of what is known, and concentrates on dissecting and analyzing extremes brought about by the polar boundaries of (re)presentation and abstraction, in order to reveal the nature of time and move closer in my personal search for the qualities of timelessness (a timeless architecture). It allows one to imagine an instance in which Daniel Burnham's Plan for Chicago is physically overlaid upon a diagram of the city today. Then makes real the thesis, that further completions of Burnham's plan could occur through the building of appropriate architectural programs upon site transformations of coincidental junctures resulting from the juxtaposition of Burnham's plan and its corresponding contemporary overlay. This definition of appropriate programming is followed by the further locating of three sites, three sites upon which a further single site believed most exemplary or appropriate for a select mixed use Regional Public Library Facility is derived. A unique program for a library facility which seeks to establish connections to the theoretical designs of Burnham's Plan as well as with the contemporary site and time specific influences and demands of an existing urban fabric.