Daniel Burnham's Plan for Manila

In 1899, the US conquered the Philippine Islands from Spain. The US takeover was a mixed operation, with savage repression of rebels waving copies of the Declaration of Independence, but also a willingness to invest heavily in improvements and engage with the Filipino elite in governing the islands. The promised transition to local democratic rule took longer than Filipinos would have liked, but it was well under way in 1941 when a Japanese invasion messed up the timetable. The Philippines achieved their independence in 1946, one of the first colonies to be liberated in the postwar period.

The Treasury, One of the Burnham Period Buildings

In 1900, understanding that the situation in the Philippines was critical, McKinley sent one of the best Americans to become the first Governor General: future president William Howard Taft. Taft got along famously with Filipino elite, even though he pursued a policy of land reform that led to the dismemberment of several large estates. After all, that elite very much wanted to join the modern, industrializing world, and they appreciated that Taft wanted to help them make that happen.

Taft decided that one of the things the Philippines needed to become a proper modern country was a new capital city on the grand scale. So he got Teddy Roosevelt to send a team of architects led by Daniel Burnham to devise a new plan for Manila. 

Manila in 1736

Burnham, the lead architect of the Chicago Worlds Fair and a generally famous character, fell in love with Manila. He wrote,

Possessing the bay of Naples, the winding river of Paris, and the canals of Venice, Manila has before it an opportunity unique in history of modern times, the opportunity to create a unified city equal to the greatest of the Western world with the unparalleled and priceless addition of a tropical setting,

These days Burnham is probably most famous for writing: "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans." His plan for Manila very much put this axiom into action, since he planned on a grand scale. The plan is at the top of the post; this is the best-quality image I could find, but I think it is good enough for you to see that Burnam was thinking big. Less than half of that area had been built on by 1900, so he imagined a huge expansion of the city, with long, straight, diagonal boulevards to tie the metropolis together.

Above is a detail from the plan showing the new monumental core Burnham imagined for reclaimed marshland next to the old walled city. Since this was a colony, the core was to include government buildings but also the city's top hotel and the clubs where American military men and other officials hung out. (Perhaps this was a nod to Taft, one of history's great clubmen.)  Burnham specified that the old city walls should be left in place, due to their historical interest, but the mosquito-infested moat should be filled and the land used for a new road.

Part of the model Burnham's team made of the new city

For a bunch of reasons, most of Burnham's plan was never realized. It was too expensive, too grand, and involved seizing a lot of private land. But he and the team of architects he left behind to pursue the rebuilding did leave a major legacy in Manila. 

(On the other hand, the plan that Burnham also devised for Baguio, a hilltop resort that was to become the colonial "summer capital," was much more completely realized, mostly because a lot of it was on vacant land.)

That imagined Mall is now Rizal Park, and it hosts several national museums. Some of Burnham's radiating boulevards were constructed. The architectural style Burnham selected, Beaux-Arts concrete, was used for most of the public buildings constructed between 1905 and 1941. (In this context Beaux-Arts means something like "decorative – not severe – classicism, modified for modern purposes.") Burnham repeatedly emphasized the need for green spaces, from large parks to small gardens within roadway roundabouts, and Manila is still full of these. Burnham loved fountains and small waterways, and Manila is full of them.

Two of the Burnham period buildings, along one of the new boulevards, photograph from the 1950s.

Other buildings and details.

Searching the internet while putting this post together I have found several references to Burnham's plan from contemporary Filipino writers. All are positive; a sample title would be, "Burnham’s century-old ideas can still be used to improve Manila." It seems 21st-century architects are particularly interested in Burnham's plans for turning waterways into Venice-style canals, lined with apartment buildings.

I find all of this fascinating. The weird fact of the democratic, revolutionary US taking over old Spanish colonies is intriguing in itself, as are the political struggles that followed over the next 40 years. For example, I've been trying to find out why nobody imagined that the Philippines might ever become part of the US, as was imagined from the beginning for Hawaii, but haven't found anything; it seems everyone just assumed from 1899 on that the destiny of the Philippines was independence. Same for Cuba vs. Puerto Rico, I guess.

And then there is the fascination of the assignment Burnham's team was handed: turn an aging colonial city into the capital of a new, modern nation. In our era many people have a reflexive dislike of top-down urban planning, especially when carried out by a colonial regime: but if Manila had been left to grow "naturally" it would not have many of the amenities that make it a lovely city. Burnham knew, as city planners had known since the time of the ancient Egyptians, that some things need to be laid out in advance, and some space needs to be set aside for public purposes before people cover it with houses.

Neither Taft nor Burnham was a strong advocate for colonialism. Both found themselves thrust into an ambivalent position: running someone else's country, and planning its capital. Both threw themselves into the job and emerged with their reputations greatly enhanced.