February 27, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of The Engineering Passion Express, we take you on a journey from having all the right technical skills to do a project, to being the person who has to manage a combination of similarly talented people for a larger scale project.
This story is told through the lens of Daniel Burnham, Architect and one of the first urban planners! Daniel didn't set out to build the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, but when it was offered to him in recognition of his skill, he accepted the challenge.
Join me and learn where Daniel Burnham and the fair struggled, how he overcame hurdles, many of which were personal and how the fair would impact the world in decades to follow!
Show Notes and Links
If after listening to the episode, you want to learn a bit more about the details of the fair, a great book is "The Devil in The White City" by EriK Larson. Here is a link to it - https://amzn.to/42rF8sc
Note: Devil in the White City is two books in one. It's about the fair, but also about a serial killer lurking at the same time. They are separated by chapters, and I found the engineering and architecture chapters far more engaging, so if you don't like horror stories, you can skip the H.H. Holmes chapters.
The Engineering Passion Express is about growing knowledge and the passion for engineering.
It is my hope, that this grows into a powerful community where people share knowledge, or their passions and find happiness in their pursuits of making things better by thinking like an engineer.
The Engineering Passion Express is about growing knowledge and the passion for engineering.
It is my hope, that this grows into a powerful community where people share knowledge, or their passions and find happiness in their pursuits of making things better by thinking like an engineer.
Thanks for listening,
Brandon Donnelly
Please connect with me on linkedin @ linkedin.com/in/brandondonnelly
The Engineering Passion Express is about growing knowledge and the passion for engineering.
If you are a conference organizer and are looking for an engineering or scientific speaker to inspire or educate in a keynote presentation, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can find my profile below.
Thanks for listening,
Brandon Donnelly
Please connect with me on linkedin @ linkedin.com/in/brandondonnelly
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Six months before the eighteen ninety-three
World's Fair, everything wasfalling apart.
Deadlines were slipping, theground was a muddy mess, and the
world was watching, waiting forChicago to fail.
In the middle of the chaos stoodDaniel Burnham, the architect
hired to deliver a fair thatcould outshine Paris and the
Eiffel Tower from four yearsbefore.
But when the project gearedtowards disaster, Burnham did
(00:22):
something unexpected.
He took control, he made thetough calls, and he pushed the
limits of what engineers thoughtwas possible.
This is the story of how DanielBurnham fought to hold the fair
together, and how the eighteenninety three World's Fair
challenged everything engineersbelieve about precision,
collaboration, and about what itreally takes to pull off the
(00:45):
impossible.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform
you that this portion of theEngineering Passion Express is
running behind schedule.
Not due to mechanical failure,but because Chicago is currently
buried in political production.
(02:47):
So please stay seated, folks.
As we pull in, things are aboutto get interesting.
SPEAKER_03 (02:58):
If you stepped off that train on the right day,
things definitely wereinteresting.
There was a group of men in aroom somewhere, likely at the
Union Club of Chicago, theChicago Club, or the Palmer
House, they were discussing howthey could bring more than a
billion dollars into the town.
(03:20):
This group was made up ofwealthy contributors, corporate
sponsors, city officials, andbankers or financiers.
And what they had set their eyeson for Chicago was becoming the
host town of the eighteen ninetythree World's Fair.
The World's Fairs of the timestood for desire, pride,
(03:44):
investment, and the future.
It was your chance to competefor investment from companies,
other cities and othercountries.
It would allow towns that hostedto attract the world's greatest
talent, it would also market theculture of both the city and the
(04:06):
country for tourism.
The previous World's Fair heldin eighteen eighty nine was a
triumph.
Gustave Eiffel and the EiffelTower elevated Paris and showed
their engineering prowess bybuilding the world's tallest
tower on the world stage.
(04:26):
But to build such an event, avenue that can handle people
from all over the world comingin by the tens of thousands a
day and the millions over thecourse of the entire event.
Who do you even pick to lead upsomething like that?
Well a shortlisted criteriamight be someone respected in
(04:49):
their field.
Since there's a lot of buildingsto be constructed and roadways
to be managed, you might wantsomebody with architectural and
construction experience.
Since they're going to have tolead up something that's never
been done before.
You're going to want someonewith a pioneering spirit.
And since it's so huge in scopeand magnitude, you're going to
(05:14):
want someone who can navigatelogistics, personalities,
finances, and more.
And when you take all of thatinto consideration, the list is
not very long.
And if you add one moreconstraint that you would like
the person leading it up to befrom the town that you were in
(05:35):
and the city that you were in,then the list grows even
shorter.
It didn't take the leaders allthat long to decide who should
lead up this project.
Daniel Burnham was their choice.
He was respected in the cityalready.
He was building the MasonicTemple for three and a half
(05:59):
million dollars at the time,which was the most expensive
project and one of the mostexpensive buildings in all of
Chicago.
And because he had built some ofthe leading skyscrapers in
Chicago, he already knew many ofthe people leading up the bid to
get the fare, because he workedwith the same bankers, the same
(06:20):
business people.
But still, when somebody reachesout to you and says we would
like you to lead this up, andit's of a scope, an order of
magnitude larger than somethingyou've ever dealt with, it's
easy to resist and to pull back.
(06:41):
The sheer magnitude of the taskcan cause the greatest
self-doubt in us.
And when you think the task liesoutside your area of expertise,
say as Daniel Burnham is anarchitect, and he's being asked
to build an entire city tocontain a world's fair, the task
(07:03):
may not match the identity ofthe person.
And when there's already thatself-doubt, and you add in
external resistance that DanielBurnham faced, objections of
other architects, most of whomwere jealous and wanted to lead
it up themselves, it becomesvery difficult to simply say
(07:26):
yes.
Some of these other architectstried to justify their rejection
by saying he's a businessman,not a designer, because
Burnham's partner John Rootwould take the lead on the
design portions while Burnhamhandled the manufacturing, the
(07:47):
logistics, the finances, andbringing work into the office.
They also felt Chicago wasn't asophisticated town like Boston
or New York, so it should be ledby an architect from those
areas.
After all, we don't want todisgrace America by showing
something less sophisticatedthan what we're actually capable
(08:10):
of.
And others thought having acentralized planner making
decisions in an authoritativehierarchy would be absolutely
terrible and stifle creativity.
But there's always other forcesacting on us that push us in the
opposite direction.
(08:31):
To learn, to grow, to accepttasks that are beyond the scope
of anything that we've everdone.
Daniel Burnham had this in hispartner, John Root.
John was a creative designer whopioneered raft foundations and
other architectural featuresnecessary to build the modern
(08:53):
skyscrapers of the time.
And he wanted to do great work,and he knew his partner, Daniel
Burnham accepting, would allowhim to also be extremely
intertwined in the decisionmaking process of the fair.
There's also a larger force atplay, and that's often how we
(09:15):
feel about ourselves.
Daniel Burnham was perceived aswealthy, respectable, and he had
comfortable downtownarchitectural offices.
He was held in high esteem byother industry leaders and civic
leaders in the Chicago area, butmost of them were not like him.
(09:35):
In fact, his true identity wasthat he was from a middle class
family, and he was ambitious,restless really, with a chip on
his shoulder from past failure.
He tried to get into Harvard andYale and he failed.
He tried to become a goldprospector and he failed.
He tried to become a politicianin Nevada and he failed.
(09:56):
And nothing creates a chip onthe shoulder quite like failure.
At least not in those who refuseto believe that their identity
is one of failure.
(10:20):
To start down that path, Burnhamstarted as a draftsman in 1868
at twenty two years old.
He was working at Carter, Drakeand Wright, where he met John
Wellbourne Root, and hedeveloped his skills as a master
of organization and execution.
Skills that others would notice.
(10:41):
And those others that weretaking notice were very
important people in the city ofChicago.
There was Lyman J.
Gage, a civic leader, who alwaysencouraged people to think
bigger for the town.
There was Charles Schwab, asteel magnate, who started out
as an engineer at Carnegie Steeland worked his way to the top of
(11:02):
the industry.
There was George Pullman, famousfor his rail cars, who was also
a master of logistics andfinance.
And there was Marshall Field,the retail king.
And all of these men hadtremendous success in access to
(11:23):
the kind of financing that thelargest projects in the world
require.
But when a group of suchpowerful men who have had such
great successes approaches youand says, We need you to lead up
an amazingly large project ofhuge ambition for the city of
(11:49):
Chicago.
It may unsettle you being in theshadow of such a well-esteemed
group of successful people.
At the same time, having such anesteemed group of people put
their faith in you and say thatwe think you are the right
(12:12):
person for this job in itself isan amazing honor.
Like anyone with a shred ofhumility.
to say, I need to think aboutthis.
Or maybe I'm not the rightperson for the job.
But when you think about it, theplan for such a job is really
(12:36):
pretty simple at a high level.
Build a talented team of people,coordinate a cohesive and
interesting place for the fairto be held.
And then the hardest part,elevate the city of Chicago.
For a talented team of people,if you've been in an industry
(12:58):
long enough, you've definitelymet at least a few others whose
talents you recognize.
Coordinating is something anyonewho's been in a managerial
position or had to work onprojects of a large scope with
lots of different knowledge hashad to do in the past, so that's
nothing new.
(13:19):
Elevating the city of Chicago isreally about setting a high
standard.
If you already do great work,which is the reason you're being
asked in the first place,setting that standard should not
be the difficult part.
So when you think about it, itmakes sense why this group
pushed for Daniel Burnham.
(13:40):
They know that he knows otherarchitects that are also
talented.
They know he can create aninteresting place because he's
built beautiful buildings.
And while elevating the city ofChicago is not something that
happens on the daily, that partwas always going to be an
experiment.
SPEAKER_01 (14:02):
If you look out your right window, you can see a man
in contemplation.
He's wearing a very expensivestuff.
And I can't tell if he just losta fortune.
(15:02):
We all have our opportunities,and we all take our loans.
If he's lost somethingimportant, he'll have to figure
out how to rebuild just likeeverybody else.
SPEAKER_03 (15:14):
Daniel Burnham did struggle with this.
It wasn't something heimmediately thought he'd be
successful at.
And in fact, he had failure inhis life in the past.
He failed to enter Harvard, hefailed to enter Yale, he failed
to become a gold prospector, andhe failed to be a Nevada
politician.
(15:36):
Architecture was something hehad been successful at.
But if you take on a projectthat's too large and you fail,
it feels like that's going tohaunt you forever, and that
that's going to be attached toyour legacy.
(15:58):
And when you already have a fewother items in your life where
you've failed, you may be scaredto take on a bigger endeavor.
The problem is that humility,that drive, that ambition to not
fail, is exactly what's neededin nearly every large project.
(16:23):
You don't want somebody who'sgonna take it too laxadaisical
and not put in every ounce ofeffort that's required to make
something spectacular.
And it's that chip on DanielBurnham's shoulder from his past
(16:43):
failures that made him an evenmore attractive candidate to
lead up this group of men tothese leaders of Chicago.
As a man who tried many bigthings in his life right off the
(17:04):
bat, he would say, make nolittle plans, for they have no
power to stir the blood of men.
I imagine as Burnham is at homewith his wife talking about this
offer on the table to lead upthe design of the World's Fair.
(17:29):
He's sitting there listing outall the reasons why he may not
be the right person.
And his wife stares at him in aloving way, looks at him right
in the eye, and repeatssomething he's said to her many,
many times.
(17:51):
Make no little plans.
Other than to go and accept.
(18:13):
And I can imagine how thankfulhe is to his wife and his
partner, John Root, who haveboth pushed him and framed it
because they know who he is, andthey know that he's capable, and
they know that he has big plans.
And of course, Burnham withinhimself has a sense of pride.
(18:41):
And pride has a way of making ustake on things that are bigger
than we can handle.
Things we aren't quite provenin.
So Burnham's pride takes himback to the civic leaders, back
to Lyman J.
Gage, back to George Pullman,back to Charles Schwab, back to
Marshall Field, and he says,Yes, I will lead up your fare.
(19:04):
What do you need me to do?
And they said, Well, we need youto build an entire city in about
two years.
So naturally, Burnham's Bridesaid yes.
Because who needs sleep?
Now I imagine after he accepted,there was some realization of
(19:26):
the stakes, and what he had justaccepted.
What did I just sign up for?
If I fail at this, there's gonnabe a national embarrassment for
America.
There's gonna be enormous lostmoney.
And on the other side, thesuccessful side, there's even
(19:49):
more at stake.
Chicago will be elevated as acity for tourism, bringing in
dollars and creating opportunityfor everyone.
Everyone in the town.
American culture will be raised.
An investment will take place.
That investment creatingopportunity to lift others out
(20:10):
of poverty.
And I will be something morethan an architect.
I'll have designed an entirecity.
I'll have some reputation thatelevates me a bit above the rest
of the industry.
That's a lot on the line for ahuge project in a tight
(20:32):
timeline.
Like any enormous project, thefirst task is dealing with
deadlines.
Unlike somebody inventing aproduct, there may be no
specific deadline in place.
A fair has a start date.
Back then the travel was byboat, and it took a long time to
(20:56):
get from Europe to the UnitedStates.
And the fairs have to market sothat the people know where to
show up, when it's happening,and why they're going to go.
There is no moving the deadline.
When these people show up, thefair has to be built.
You can't have buildings with noroofs on them.
(21:17):
It's got to be complete.
Burnham, being a master oflogistics, started making his
plans, timelines, tasks.
But he probably knew he was introuble when his Gantt chart
started looking like a game ofTetris.
Still, to make a plan like this,you often have to work
(21:38):
backwards.
Starting with the clear deadlineand working to today.
And in between, you have to justfigure out how to make those
timelines work.
And within those tasks, he alsohad great challenges that he
didn't even know how to beginon.
He had to show America's prowessin engineering, which meant he
(21:59):
had to top Gustave's EiffelTower from the 1889 World's Fair
in Paris.
But at the same time, hecouldn't just build a larger
tower.
The United States can't be seenas a derivative of Europe.
If so, why would anybody investhere when they could invest in
(22:21):
Europe?
Why would anybody travel herewhen they could travel to
Europe?
The America has todifferentiate.
And so the centerpiece for thisfair has to differentiate from
the Eiffel Tower.
It can't just be building largerthan the Eiffel Tower.
(22:41):
To solve that problem, he neededto attract the right people.
People with ambition to outdothe tower, people with
creativity, people with skills.
But Burnham knew how to overcomethat.
Make no little plans.
(23:15):
So he wrote out in competitionwhat he was looking for and
started messaging differentengineering groups saying we're
looking for a centerpiece forthe fair.
And unfortunately, everybodycame back with exactly the wrong
solution.
Most of the solutions weretowers taller than the Eiffel
(23:38):
Tower.
Some were too fantastical inidea with no possibility, no
feasible execution plan foractually bringing them to
reality.
Such as imagine an extremelytall tower in Chicago that's so
(23:59):
tall, and they then put a cartat the top on rails, two steel
rails, and it's at such a narrowslope that you get in this cart
and it will coast all the wayfrom Chicago to New York, where
most of the fair people woulddepart by boat.
(24:20):
Now while that's a great fantasyfor the time, if you imagine the
hundreds of miles in between thetwo cities, and the required
amount of support towers thatwould have to be built along
that route, and the fact thatyou would have to get carts back
(24:44):
from New York to Chicago at somepoint, it just wasn't feasible
to build.
That engineer was GeorgeWashington Gail Ferris Jr.
(25:09):
And his idea was to build anenormous 250-foot-tall wheel.
And today you know this is theFerris wheel.
The Ferris wheel that mostpeople are familiar with at
local carnivals do not comparein scale to the one that Ferris
(25:32):
was proposing.
And this proposal was soshocking that it was rejected at
the beginning.
It was rejected because at firstthey thought it wasn't feasible,
so Ferris did more calculations.
Then it was rejected becausethey weren't safe, so Ferris, as
(25:54):
an engineer, did more structuralcalculations.
He kept pressing and pressingand pressing.
With the other ideas coming inbeing so derivative and tower
like, they eventually realizedwe have to do this.
And it was amazing when youthink about it, because the
(26:15):
statement that it ended upmaking is that Europe is static.
It's been the way that it is forhundreds of years, and it's not
going to change.
Meanwhile, America is dynamic.
We're moving, we're shifting,we're up, we're down, but it was
(26:37):
an amazing experience.
Now Daniel Burnham had otherissues to deal with while
building the fair.
He struggled with the land thathe was given to build the
(27:00):
buildings on.
Turns out it was swam land withmost of the muddy, mucky, soft
soil for foundations for thesehuge, enormous, heavy buildings.
So he had to figure out a way tobuild on that.
As he was nearing the end of thefair, and all of the final
touches and all of the budgetoverruns that are possible need
(27:23):
more money to make this thingcomplete, there was a financial
crisis.
Where's the money?
Risk tolerance is low.
And by dealing with all of thesebig, enormous challenges, his
partner, John Root, the man thatwas maybe the most responsible
(27:44):
for pushing Burnham into therole of managing all this, died.
Burnham's loneliness set in,feeling isolated from partners.
His wife is actually inEvanston, Illinois, about forty
miles away, and at the time hewas maybe seeing her about once
(28:08):
a month.
And when you lose half of youridentity, such as losing a
partner that you've been tied inclosely with for twenty-two
years, you then have to digdeep.
Maybe ask yourself who you are.
SPEAKER_02 (28:30):
Daniel Burnham leading up the welfare.
Everybody's wondering, will hepull it off?
SPEAKER_03 (28:37):
Hearing all this news while you're already
devastated about your partnerand likely your best friend's
death, and in mourning fromlosing the man that you built
the company with, Burnham andRoot, that gave you all the
respect, that gave you theopportunity that you're working
(29:00):
on at the moment, was certainlya big blow.
But that shoulder ached thatchip was still there.
And Pride told Burnham that hehad to finish what he started.
(29:22):
That regardless of whether JohnRoot was there or not, the fair
had to become a success.
If it didn't, it would ruin bothof their legacies.
And John Root was no longeralive to defend his.
So Burnham did all that hecould, which was to stick with
(29:44):
the project, work hard, lean onthe other successful architects
on the team, and the engineersworking on the Ferris wheel, and
press on.
(30:08):
The remainder of the fair hadits challenges.
It was concerning on whetherthey would even be able to pay
back all the money that wasborrowed to build the fair.
But they completed it.
They say the fair proved Americacould rival Europe.
(30:29):
Honestly, it proved we couldoverengineer anything if given
enough time and budget overruns.
But all joking aside, it was aspectacular result of
competition and cooperation.
All of the men that designed andbuilt the fair were competitors
(30:50):
with each other, competingarchitects that all wanted to be
as seen as the best so theycould be hired to do the most
tremendous work America had tooffer.
And even though those egos werecompeting with one another, they
managed to build a sharedvision.
(31:10):
They managed to buildspectacular buildings with
lights on the outside for thefirst time ever.
The Ferris wheel provided a newsensation to riders never before
experienced.
Getting in a car with fortyother passengers and rising up
two hundred feet in the air andlooking out at the skyline.
(31:31):
That hadn't been done.
And while at the fair, the waron currents took a turn.
Thomas Edison and Nikola Teslahad been arguing between
alternating current and directcurrent for years now.
Both are presenting in thepavilions at the fair, but
(31:54):
Nikola Tesla and GeorgeWestinghouse proves alternating
current superiority inefficiency and cost.
As a direct result of the fair,they won the Niagara Falls power
plant contract, which madealternating current a global
standard in the new field ofelectrification.
(32:18):
The fair became a blueprint forfuture cities and started the
City Beautiful movement, whichshared the belief that spaces
should inspire, particularlypublic spaces should inspire,
and not just be functional.
It had mass influence on popculture, in fact Disneyland is
(32:39):
modeled on it.
Elias Disney was a carpenter whoworked on the fair.
His son Walt would go on tofound Disney.
That war of currents was thebeginning of electrification,
and in fact the white city thatwas built for the fair was the
(33:02):
first lit up entirely byelectric lamps and light bulbs.
The fair's design itself likelyinspired The Wizard of Oz and
The Emerald City because Frank LBaum lived just outside of
Chicago in Humboldt Park, wherehe moved in 1891.
(33:23):
And he published The Wizard ofOz in 1900, seven years after
the fair.
While all of this was a triumphfor something that took two
years to build.
Unfortunately, in eighteenninety-four, after the fair
(33:45):
ended, nearly all of the whitecity built for the fair burned
down.
So after all those years of toiland heartache, what was Burnham
left with?
Well Burnham was still a dreameron a mass scale.
And once that work's gone, he'sstill been transformed in
(34:08):
reputation.
Daniel Burnham was like aphoenix, reborn after the fair.
He was no longer an architect,he was the most influential
urban planner in the US andpossibly the world at the time.
After Burnham had completed theworld's fair, if you were doing
a project of significant scopethat required multiple buildings
(34:34):
and required planning somethingthe size of a town, how many
people do you think were on thatlist?
Today there's a lot of peoplethat think there aren't enough
projects for everybody to dosomething amazing like that.
(34:55):
And that's certainly true.
Not everybody can lead up abillion-dollar project.
There just aren't enough ofthem.
But the amount of opportunitythat there is is growing.
Relative to the population,there are more of these projects
(35:16):
than there has ever been.
The White City cost 27 milliondollars.
Today that would be 945 milliondollars.
The reality is that today'sgross domestic product of the
United States is$22 trillion.
(35:40):
Adjusted for inflation, there'sabout 22,000 people leading up
projects this size.
In 1890, the gross domesticproduct was roughly 15 billion.
If you divide that by the 27million dollars, there was only
(36:04):
five hundred and fifty-fiveprojects this size.
There is a populationdiscrepancy.
In eighteen ninety there wassixty-three million people in
the United States.
Today there's around threehundred and forty million.
But when you put all thistogether, that means that
there's roughly five times theodds relative to the population
(36:27):
of you being someone to lead upa project of this magnitude
compared to a hundred years ago.
Today is your opportunity.
And it is out there.
You can be reborn closer to yourtrue greatness today if you want
to be, but you have to step intothat metaphorical fire.
(36:58):
I sincerely thank you forlistening to today's episode.
As always, I'm your host,Brandon Donnelly, and it's been
great providing you someperspective on Daniel Burnham
and his legacy of building theWhite City.
There is so much inspiration outthere in the world for
engineers, and I know fromhaving gone around and talked to
(37:18):
them that there's an enormousamount of passion for this work
to be done.
Unfortunately, there's a giantchasm between the people who see
opportunities and the peoplethat take action on them.
While we're all waiting to bethe right person to be picked by
(37:40):
a group like Daniel Burnham was,there is a lot of opportunity to
simply choose yourself as theright person and to start
finding others.
It's my goal with this podcastto inspire you to be that person
who takes on the largechallenges and to be the person
(38:03):
that maybe even facilitates youin helping find those people.
As we seek to build ourcommunity.
If you're listening to this onYouTube, please subscribe or go
(38:26):
to theengineeringpassionexpress.com
and follow us for futureepisodes.
While these first episodes allmake up season one and are
focused on starting somethingnew, picking the problems to
work on, and framing youridentity and understanding
(38:48):
yourself.
In the future, we will dive intomore technical topics.
If you know anyone who you'dlike to be a guest on this show,
please send me a message onLinkedIn.
You can find my profile page inthe show notes.
And I thank you for being alistener.
(39:10):
And I hope you find this showinspiring and a bit educational.
(40:55):
If you stay tuned for this long,you're probably looking for a
teaser for the next episode.
On the next episode, we're gonnalook at Daniel Burnham's
European counterpart and how hehad to fight.
And we're gonna seek tounderstand a little bit more
about the financial side of suchgreat engineering teams.
(41:20):
I look forward to creating thatepisode and to sharing it with
you all.
We'll see you in two weeks.
Six months before the eighteen ninety-three
World's Fair, everything wasfalling apart.
Deadlines were slipping, theground was a muddy mess, and the
world was watching, waiting forChicago to fail.
In the middle of the chaos stoodDaniel Burnham, the architect
hired to deliver a fair thatcould outshine Paris and the
Eiffel Tower from four yearsbefore.
But when the project gearedtowards disaster, Burnham did
(00:22):
something unexpected.
He took control, he made thetough calls, and he pushed the
limits of what engineers thoughtwas possible.
This is the story of how DanielBurnham fought to hold the fair
together, and how the eighteenninety three World's Fair
challenged everything engineersbelieve about precision,
collaboration, and about what itreally takes to pull off the
(00:45):
impossible.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform
you that this portion of theEngineering Passion Express is
running behind schedule.
Not due to mechanical failure,but because Chicago is currently
buried in political production.
(02:47):
So please stay seated, folks.
As we pull in, things are aboutto get interesting.
SPEAKER_03 (02:58):
If you stepped off that train on the right day,
things definitely wereinteresting.
There was a group of men in aroom somewhere, likely at the
Union Club of Chicago, theChicago Club, or the Palmer
House, they were discussing howthey could bring more than a
billion dollars into the town.
(03:20):
This group was made up ofwealthy contributors, corporate
sponsors, city officials, andbankers or financiers.
And what they had set their eyeson for Chicago was becoming the
host town of the eighteen ninetythree World's Fair.
The World's Fairs of the timestood for desire, pride,
(03:44):
investment, and the future.
It was your chance to competefor investment from companies,
other cities and othercountries.
It would allow towns that hostedto attract the world's greatest
talent, it would also market theculture of both the city and the
(04:06):
country for tourism.
The previous World's Fair heldin eighteen eighty nine was a
triumph.
Gustave Eiffel and the EiffelTower elevated Paris and showed
their engineering prowess bybuilding the world's tallest
tower on the world stage.
(04:26):
But to build such an event, avenue that can handle people
from all over the world comingin by the tens of thousands a
day and the millions over thecourse of the entire event.
Who do you even pick to lead upsomething like that?
Well a shortlisted criteriamight be someone respected in
(04:49):
their field.
Since there's a lot of buildingsto be constructed and roadways
to be managed, you might wantsomebody with architectural and
construction experience.
Since they're going to have tolead up something that's never
been done before.
You're going to want someonewith a pioneering spirit.
And since it's so huge in scopeand magnitude, you're going to
(05:14):
want someone who can navigatelogistics, personalities,
finances, and more.
And when you take all of thatinto consideration, the list is
not very long.
And if you add one moreconstraint that you would like
the person leading it up to befrom the town that you were in
(05:35):
and the city that you were in,then the list grows even
shorter.
It didn't take the leaders allthat long to decide who should
lead up this project.
Daniel Burnham was their choice.
He was respected in the cityalready.
He was building the MasonicTemple for three and a half
(05:59):
million dollars at the time,which was the most expensive
project and one of the mostexpensive buildings in all of
Chicago.
And because he had built some ofthe leading skyscrapers in
Chicago, he already knew many ofthe people leading up the bid to
get the fare, because he workedwith the same bankers, the same
(06:20):
business people.
But still, when somebody reachesout to you and says we would
like you to lead this up, andit's of a scope, an order of
magnitude larger than somethingyou've ever dealt with, it's
easy to resist and to pull back.
(06:41):
The sheer magnitude of the taskcan cause the greatest
self-doubt in us.
And when you think the task liesoutside your area of expertise,
say as Daniel Burnham is anarchitect, and he's being asked
to build an entire city tocontain a world's fair, the task
(07:03):
may not match the identity ofthe person.
And when there's already thatself-doubt, and you add in
external resistance that DanielBurnham faced, objections of
other architects, most of whomwere jealous and wanted to lead
it up themselves, it becomesvery difficult to simply say
(07:26):
yes.
Some of these other architectstried to justify their rejection
by saying he's a businessman,not a designer, because
Burnham's partner John Rootwould take the lead on the
design portions while Burnhamhandled the manufacturing, the
(07:47):
logistics, the finances, andbringing work into the office.
They also felt Chicago wasn't asophisticated town like Boston
or New York, so it should be ledby an architect from those
areas.
After all, we don't want todisgrace America by showing
something less sophisticatedthan what we're actually capable
(08:10):
of.
And others thought having acentralized planner making
decisions in an authoritativehierarchy would be absolutely
terrible and stifle creativity.
But there's always other forcesacting on us that push us in the
opposite direction.
(08:31):
To learn, to grow, to accepttasks that are beyond the scope
of anything that we've everdone.
Daniel Burnham had this in hispartner, John Root.
John was a creative designer whopioneered raft foundations and
other architectural featuresnecessary to build the modern
(08:53):
skyscrapers of the time.
And he wanted to do great work,and he knew his partner, Daniel
Burnham accepting, would allowhim to also be extremely
intertwined in the decisionmaking process of the fair.
There's also a larger force atplay, and that's often how we
(09:15):
feel about ourselves.
Daniel Burnham was perceived aswealthy, respectable, and he had
comfortable downtownarchitectural offices.
He was held in high esteem byother industry leaders and civic
leaders in the Chicago area, butmost of them were not like him.
(09:35):
In fact, his true identity wasthat he was from a middle class
family, and he was ambitious,restless really, with a chip on
his shoulder from past failure.
He tried to get into Harvard andYale and he failed.
He tried to become a goldprospector and he failed.
He tried to become a politicianin Nevada and he failed.
(09:56):
And nothing creates a chip onthe shoulder quite like failure.
At least not in those who refuseto believe that their identity
is one of failure.
(10:20):
To start down that path, Burnhamstarted as a draftsman in 1868
at twenty two years old.
He was working at Carter, Drakeand Wright, where he met John
Wellbourne Root, and hedeveloped his skills as a master
of organization and execution.
Skills that others would notice.
(10:41):
And those others that weretaking notice were very
important people in the city ofChicago.
There was Lyman J.
Gage, a civic leader, who alwaysencouraged people to think
bigger for the town.
There was Charles Schwab, asteel magnate, who started out
as an engineer at Carnegie Steeland worked his way to the top of
(11:02):
the industry.
There was George Pullman, famousfor his rail cars, who was also
a master of logistics andfinance.
And there was Marshall Field,the retail king.
And all of these men hadtremendous success in access to
(11:23):
the kind of financing that thelargest projects in the world
require.
But when a group of suchpowerful men who have had such
great successes approaches youand says, We need you to lead up
an amazingly large project ofhuge ambition for the city of
(11:49):
Chicago.
It may unsettle you being in theshadow of such a well-esteemed
group of successful people.
At the same time, having such anesteemed group of people put
their faith in you and say thatwe think you are the right
(12:12):
person for this job in itself isan amazing honor.
Like anyone with a shred ofhumility.
to say, I need to think aboutthis.
Or maybe I'm not the rightperson for the job.
But when you think about it, theplan for such a job is really
(12:36):
pretty simple at a high level.
Build a talented team of people,coordinate a cohesive and
interesting place for the fairto be held.
And then the hardest part,elevate the city of Chicago.
For a talented team of people,if you've been in an industry
(12:58):
long enough, you've definitelymet at least a few others whose
talents you recognize.
Coordinating is something anyonewho's been in a managerial
position or had to work onprojects of a large scope with
lots of different knowledge hashad to do in the past, so that's
nothing new.
(13:19):
Elevating the city of Chicago isreally about setting a high
standard.
If you already do great work,which is the reason you're being
asked in the first place,setting that standard should not
be the difficult part.
So when you think about it, itmakes sense why this group
pushed for Daniel Burnham.
(13:40):
They know that he knows otherarchitects that are also
talented.
They know he can create aninteresting place because he's
built beautiful buildings.
And while elevating the city ofChicago is not something that
happens on the daily, that partwas always going to be an
experiment.
SPEAKER_01 (14:02):
If you look out your right window, you can see a man
in contemplation.
He's wearing a very expensivestuff.
And I can't tell if he just losta fortune.
(15:02):
We all have our opportunities,and we all take our loans.
If he's lost somethingimportant, he'll have to figure
out how to rebuild just likeeverybody else.
SPEAKER_03 (15:14):
Daniel Burnham did struggle with this.
It wasn't something heimmediately thought he'd be
successful at.
And in fact, he had failure inhis life in the past.
He failed to enter Harvard, hefailed to enter Yale, he failed
to become a gold prospector, andhe failed to be a Nevada
politician.
(15:36):
Architecture was something hehad been successful at.
But if you take on a projectthat's too large and you fail,
it feels like that's going tohaunt you forever, and that
that's going to be attached toyour legacy.
(15:58):
And when you already have a fewother items in your life where
you've failed, you may be scaredto take on a bigger endeavor.
The problem is that humility,that drive, that ambition to not
fail, is exactly what's neededin nearly every large project.
(16:23):
You don't want somebody who'sgonna take it too laxadaisical
and not put in every ounce ofeffort that's required to make
something spectacular.
And it's that chip on DanielBurnham's shoulder from his past
(16:43):
failures that made him an evenmore attractive candidate to
lead up this group of men tothese leaders of Chicago.
As a man who tried many bigthings in his life right off the
(17:04):
bat, he would say, make nolittle plans, for they have no
power to stir the blood of men.
I imagine as Burnham is at homewith his wife talking about this
offer on the table to lead upthe design of the World's Fair.
(17:29):
He's sitting there listing outall the reasons why he may not
be the right person.
And his wife stares at him in aloving way, looks at him right
in the eye, and repeatssomething he's said to her many,
many times.
(17:51):
Make no little plans.
Other than to go and accept.
(18:13):
And I can imagine how thankfulhe is to his wife and his
partner, John Root, who haveboth pushed him and framed it
because they know who he is, andthey know that he's capable, and
they know that he has big plans.
And of course, Burnham withinhimself has a sense of pride.
(18:41):
And pride has a way of making ustake on things that are bigger
than we can handle.
Things we aren't quite provenin.
So Burnham's pride takes himback to the civic leaders, back
to Lyman J.
Gage, back to George Pullman,back to Charles Schwab, back to
Marshall Field, and he says,Yes, I will lead up your fare.
(19:04):
What do you need me to do?
And they said, Well, we need youto build an entire city in about
two years.
So naturally, Burnham's Bridesaid yes.
Because who needs sleep?
Now I imagine after he accepted,there was some realization of
(19:26):
the stakes, and what he had justaccepted.
What did I just sign up for?
If I fail at this, there's gonnabe a national embarrassment for
America.
There's gonna be enormous lostmoney.
And on the other side, thesuccessful side, there's even
(19:49):
more at stake.
Chicago will be elevated as acity for tourism, bringing in
dollars and creating opportunityfor everyone.
Everyone in the town.
American culture will be raised.
An investment will take place.
That investment creatingopportunity to lift others out
(20:10):
of poverty.
And I will be something morethan an architect.
I'll have designed an entirecity.
I'll have some reputation thatelevates me a bit above the rest
of the industry.
That's a lot on the line for ahuge project in a tight
(20:32):
timeline.
Like any enormous project, thefirst task is dealing with
deadlines.
Unlike somebody inventing aproduct, there may be no
specific deadline in place.
A fair has a start date.
Back then the travel was byboat, and it took a long time to
(20:56):
get from Europe to the UnitedStates.
And the fairs have to market sothat the people know where to
show up, when it's happening,and why they're going to go.
There is no moving the deadline.
When these people show up, thefair has to be built.
You can't have buildings with noroofs on them.
(21:17):
It's got to be complete.
Burnham, being a master oflogistics, started making his
plans, timelines, tasks.
But he probably knew he was introuble when his Gantt chart
started looking like a game ofTetris.
Still, to make a plan like this,you often have to work
(21:38):
backwards.
Starting with the clear deadlineand working to today.
And in between, you have to justfigure out how to make those
timelines work.
And within those tasks, he alsohad great challenges that he
didn't even know how to beginon.
He had to show America's prowessin engineering, which meant he
(21:59):
had to top Gustave's EiffelTower from the 1889 World's Fair
in Paris.
But at the same time, hecouldn't just build a larger
tower.
The United States can't be seenas a derivative of Europe.
If so, why would anybody investhere when they could invest in
(22:21):
Europe?
Why would anybody travel herewhen they could travel to
Europe?
The America has todifferentiate.
And so the centerpiece for thisfair has to differentiate from
the Eiffel Tower.
It can't just be building largerthan the Eiffel Tower.
(22:41):
To solve that problem, he neededto attract the right people.
People with ambition to outdothe tower, people with
creativity, people with skills.
But Burnham knew how to overcomethat.
Make no little plans.
(23:15):
So he wrote out in competitionwhat he was looking for and
started messaging differentengineering groups saying we're
looking for a centerpiece forthe fair.
And unfortunately, everybodycame back with exactly the wrong
solution.
Most of the solutions weretowers taller than the Eiffel
(23:38):
Tower.
Some were too fantastical inidea with no possibility, no
feasible execution plan foractually bringing them to
reality.
Such as imagine an extremelytall tower in Chicago that's so
(23:59):
tall, and they then put a cartat the top on rails, two steel
rails, and it's at such a narrowslope that you get in this cart
and it will coast all the wayfrom Chicago to New York, where
most of the fair people woulddepart by boat.
(24:20):
Now while that's a great fantasyfor the time, if you imagine the
hundreds of miles in between thetwo cities, and the required
amount of support towers thatwould have to be built along
that route, and the fact thatyou would have to get carts back
(24:44):
from New York to Chicago at somepoint, it just wasn't feasible
to build.
That engineer was GeorgeWashington Gail Ferris Jr.
(25:09):
And his idea was to build anenormous 250-foot-tall wheel.
And today you know this is theFerris wheel.
The Ferris wheel that mostpeople are familiar with at
local carnivals do not comparein scale to the one that Ferris
(25:32):
was proposing.
And this proposal was soshocking that it was rejected at
the beginning.
It was rejected because at firstthey thought it wasn't feasible,
so Ferris did more calculations.
Then it was rejected becausethey weren't safe, so Ferris, as
(25:54):
an engineer, did more structuralcalculations.
He kept pressing and pressingand pressing.
With the other ideas coming inbeing so derivative and tower
like, they eventually realizedwe have to do this.
And it was amazing when youthink about it, because the
(26:15):
statement that it ended upmaking is that Europe is static.
It's been the way that it is forhundreds of years, and it's not
going to change.
Meanwhile, America is dynamic.
We're moving, we're shifting,we're up, we're down, but it was
(26:37):
an amazing experience.
Now Daniel Burnham had otherissues to deal with while
building the fair.
He struggled with the land thathe was given to build the
(27:00):
buildings on.
Turns out it was swam land withmost of the muddy, mucky, soft
soil for foundations for thesehuge, enormous, heavy buildings.
So he had to figure out a way tobuild on that.
As he was nearing the end of thefair, and all of the final
touches and all of the budgetoverruns that are possible need
(27:23):
more money to make this thingcomplete, there was a financial
crisis.
Where's the money?
Risk tolerance is low.
And by dealing with all of thesebig, enormous challenges, his
partner, John Root, the man thatwas maybe the most responsible
(27:44):
for pushing Burnham into therole of managing all this, died.
Burnham's loneliness set in,feeling isolated from partners.
His wife is actually inEvanston, Illinois, about forty
miles away, and at the time hewas maybe seeing her about once
(28:08):
a month.
And when you lose half of youridentity, such as losing a
partner that you've been tied inclosely with for twenty-two
years, you then have to digdeep.
Maybe ask yourself who you are.
SPEAKER_02 (28:30):
Daniel Burnham leading up the welfare.
Everybody's wondering, will hepull it off?
SPEAKER_03 (28:37):
Hearing all this news while you're already
devastated about your partnerand likely your best friend's
death, and in mourning fromlosing the man that you built
the company with, Burnham andRoot, that gave you all the
respect, that gave you theopportunity that you're working
(29:00):
on at the moment, was certainlya big blow.
But that shoulder ached thatchip was still there.
And Pride told Burnham that hehad to finish what he started.
(29:22):
That regardless of whether JohnRoot was there or not, the fair
had to become a success.
If it didn't, it would ruin bothof their legacies.
And John Root was no longeralive to defend his.
So Burnham did all that hecould, which was to stick with
(29:44):
the project, work hard, lean onthe other successful architects
on the team, and the engineersworking on the Ferris wheel, and
press on.
(30:08):
The remainder of the fair hadits challenges.
It was concerning on whetherthey would even be able to pay
back all the money that wasborrowed to build the fair.
But they completed it.
They say the fair proved Americacould rival Europe.
(30:29):
Honestly, it proved we couldoverengineer anything if given
enough time and budget overruns.
But all joking aside, it was aspectacular result of
competition and cooperation.
All of the men that designed andbuilt the fair were competitors
(30:50):
with each other, competingarchitects that all wanted to be
as seen as the best so theycould be hired to do the most
tremendous work America had tooffer.
And even though those egos werecompeting with one another, they
managed to build a sharedvision.
(31:10):
They managed to buildspectacular buildings with
lights on the outside for thefirst time ever.
The Ferris wheel provided a newsensation to riders never before
experienced.
Getting in a car with fortyother passengers and rising up
two hundred feet in the air andlooking out at the skyline.
(31:31):
That hadn't been done.
And while at the fair, the waron currents took a turn.
Thomas Edison and Nikola Teslahad been arguing between
alternating current and directcurrent for years now.
Both are presenting in thepavilions at the fair, but
(31:54):
Nikola Tesla and GeorgeWestinghouse proves alternating
current superiority inefficiency and cost.
As a direct result of the fair,they won the Niagara Falls power
plant contract, which madealternating current a global
standard in the new field ofelectrification.
(32:18):
The fair became a blueprint forfuture cities and started the
City Beautiful movement, whichshared the belief that spaces
should inspire, particularlypublic spaces should inspire,
and not just be functional.
It had mass influence on popculture, in fact Disneyland is
(32:39):
modeled on it.
Elias Disney was a carpenter whoworked on the fair.
His son Walt would go on tofound Disney.
That war of currents was thebeginning of electrification,
and in fact the white city thatwas built for the fair was the
(33:02):
first lit up entirely byelectric lamps and light bulbs.
The fair's design itself likelyinspired The Wizard of Oz and
The Emerald City because Frank LBaum lived just outside of
Chicago in Humboldt Park, wherehe moved in 1891.
(33:23):
And he published The Wizard ofOz in 1900, seven years after
the fair.
While all of this was a triumphfor something that took two
years to build.
Unfortunately, in eighteenninety-four, after the fair
(33:45):
ended, nearly all of the whitecity built for the fair burned
down.
So after all those years of toiland heartache, what was Burnham
left with?
Well Burnham was still a dreameron a mass scale.
And once that work's gone, he'sstill been transformed in
(34:08):
reputation.
Daniel Burnham was like aphoenix, reborn after the fair.
He was no longer an architect,he was the most influential
urban planner in the US andpossibly the world at the time.
After Burnham had completed theworld's fair, if you were doing
a project of significant scopethat required multiple buildings
(34:34):
and required planning somethingthe size of a town, how many
people do you think were on thatlist?
Today there's a lot of peoplethat think there aren't enough
projects for everybody to dosomething amazing like that.
(34:55):
And that's certainly true.
Not everybody can lead up abillion-dollar project.
There just aren't enough ofthem.
But the amount of opportunitythat there is is growing.
Relative to the population,there are more of these projects
(35:16):
than there has ever been.
The White City cost 27 milliondollars.
Today that would be 945 milliondollars.
The reality is that today'sgross domestic product of the
United States is$22 trillion.
(35:40):
Adjusted for inflation, there'sabout 22,000 people leading up
projects this size.
In 1890, the gross domesticproduct was roughly 15 billion.
If you divide that by the 27million dollars, there was only
(36:04):
five hundred and fifty-fiveprojects this size.
There is a populationdiscrepancy.
In eighteen ninety there wassixty-three million people in
the United States.
Today there's around threehundred and forty million.
But when you put all thistogether, that means that
there's roughly five times theodds relative to the population
(36:27):
of you being someone to lead upa project of this magnitude
compared to a hundred years ago.
Today is your opportunity.
And it is out there.
You can be reborn closer to yourtrue greatness today if you want
to be, but you have to step intothat metaphorical fire.
(36:58):
I sincerely thank you forlistening to today's episode.
As always, I'm your host,Brandon Donnelly, and it's been
great providing you someperspective on Daniel Burnham
and his legacy of building theWhite City.
There is so much inspiration outthere in the world for
engineers, and I know fromhaving gone around and talked to
(37:18):
them that there's an enormousamount of passion for this work
to be done.
Unfortunately, there's a giantchasm between the people who see
opportunities and the peoplethat take action on them.
While we're all waiting to bethe right person to be picked by
(37:40):
a group like Daniel Burnham was,there is a lot of opportunity to
simply choose yourself as theright person and to start
finding others.
It's my goal with this podcastto inspire you to be that person
who takes on the largechallenges and to be the person
(38:03):
that maybe even facilitates youin helping find those people.
As we seek to build ourcommunity.
If you're listening to this onYouTube, please subscribe or go
(38:26):
to theengineeringpassionexpress.com
and follow us for futureepisodes.
While these first episodes allmake up season one and are
focused on starting somethingnew, picking the problems to
work on, and framing youridentity and understanding
(38:48):
yourself.
In the future, we will dive intomore technical topics.
If you know anyone who you'dlike to be a guest on this show,
please send me a message onLinkedIn.
You can find my profile page inthe show notes.
And I thank you for being alistener.
(39:10):
And I hope you find this showinspiring and a bit educational.
(40:55):
If you stay tuned for this long,you're probably looking for a
teaser for the next episode.
On the next episode, we're gonnalook at Daniel Burnham's
European counterpart and how hehad to fight.
And we're gonna seek tounderstand a little bit more
about the financial side of suchgreat engineering teams.
(41:20):
I look forward to creating thatepisode and to sharing it with
you all.
We'll see you in two weeks.
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