Encyclopedia o f Chicago
Interpretive Digital Essay : The Plan of Chicago
The Plan of Chicago
Chicago in 1909
Planning Before the Plan
Antecedents and Inspirations
The City the Planners Saw
The Plan of Chicago
The Plan Comes Together
Creating the Plan
Reading the Plan
A Living Document
Promotion
Implementation
Heritage
The Work of Janin
Return to "Reading the Plan"

While Fernand Janin probably had a hand in other drawings of Grant Park and the Civic Center, only three illustrations (all of which appear in Chapter VII) are explicitly attributed to him.

Plan of Grant Park and the Harbor, Showing Proposed Arrangement

 

Janin puts the Field Columbian Museum in the center of Grant Park, as the planners proposed, though he also includes what seem to be great buildings devoted to "Letters" and "Arts" at the south and north ends of the park. He anticipates the creation of Navy Pier, and he turns the gritty Illinois Central yards into an appealing abstraction.

Elevation Showing the Group of Buildings Constituting the Proposed Civic Center

 

In this homage to neoclassicism, the Civic Center dome literally towers over its ornate base and nearby structures, each of which is about as tall as the seventeen-story Railway Exchange Building.