Daniel H. Burnham : Visionary Architect and Planner

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, but Brief
Review: A monograph on Chicago architect and planner Daniel Burnham is well over due. This is a big, beautiful book that has recent color photos of many of his major works. That being said, the book also has many shortcomings. The essay is relatively brief. There are no illustrations of Burnham & Root's earlier works such as the houses and commuter train stations that gave the firm its start. There's not even an illustration of the Montauk Building, known by many as the first skyscraper. There are very few plans and no sections or details (Wouldn't it be great to see a wall section of the Manadnock Building?). There is no building chronology, such as that contained in Thomas Hines Book. This is an expensive book, and for $95.00 (or even the reduced Amazon price) I would expect that this would be the one and only source book necessary for the study of Daniel Burnham. Unfortunately it's not. If you want a big picture book of Daniel Burnham's work, this is the book. If you want a more scholarly study, I suggest Thomas Hines "Burnham of Chicago".

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, but Brief
Review: A monograph on Chicago architect and planner Daniel Burnham is well over due. This is a big, beautiful book that has recent color photos of many of his major works. That being said, the book also has many shortcomings. The essay is relatively brief. There are no illustrations of Burnham & Root's earlier works such as the houses and commuter train stations that gave the firm its start. There's not even an illustration of the Montauk Building, known by many as the first skyscraper. There are very few plans and no sections or details (Wouldn't it be great to see a wall section of the Manadnock Building?). There is no building chronology, such as that contained in Thomas Hines Book. This is an expensive book, and for $95.00 (or even the reduced Amazon price) I would expect that this would be the one and only source book necessary for the study of Daniel Burnham. Unfortunately it's not. If you want a big picture book of Daniel Burnham's work, this is the book. If you want a more scholarly study, I suggest Thomas Hines "Burnham of Chicago".