A while ago, I came across Daniel Burnham’s Plan for San Francisco, drawn up in 1905. It’s a beautiful piece of beaux-arts draftsmanship and City Beautiful idealism. If realized, San Francisco would be a remarkedly different place, emphasizing City Beautiful’s “urban design practices for American cities: straight streets, symmetrical buildings, and harmonious building facades framing public sculpture or monuments. City Beautiful was in part a reaction against the evils of the 19th century city, emphasizing beauty and a luxurious public realm as opposed to a city that merely served the needs of industry.”
Unfortunately, 1906 was an inauspicious year for the city that would redirect energy away from its implimentation.
Read more from Urbanist Gabe Metcalf (from whom I lifted the earlier quote), or the curious aesthetes at Curbed
Below the fold, a link to order my retouched version of the map.