notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

This is an oddity:

Plan of San Francisco, showing system of circuit and radial arteries, and its communication with San Mateo County. (By Daniel H. Burnham. Assisted by Edward H. Bennett. 1905)

This is a map of the Burnham Plan of 1905. Robert Cherny’s historical essay is a good summary. On the creator:

Daniel Burnham, the most prominent city planner of the day, made his first reputation with the development of the Chicago skyscraper.

On the design:

His plan for San Francisco was, by Burnham’s own admission, primarily a plan for streets and parks. “A city must ever deal mainly with the direction and width of its streets,” he said, and his plan for San Francisco revealed an infatuation with redrawing streets and creating new diagonals and circular intersections, with the basic patterns borrowed from Pierre L’Enfant’s plan for Washington, which Burnham had refurbished shortly before, and from Paris.

On the plan’s emphasis and shortcomings:

He planned parks on the assumption that San Francisco would eventually have two million residents, but said little about planning housing. “The residential districts,” he noted cavalierly, “develop as necessity demands.”

(Note that San Francisco’s current population is nearer 800,000.)

In summary:

All in all, his master plan was not economically feasible, not practical, not even very original. Monumental in its assumptions and objectives, however, it may be best understood as a lesson in both beauty and order.

The entire post is well worth a read, and the additional illustrations are interesting, such as the monumental staircase up Twin Peaks.

Further reading: SF Chronicle, with a redrawn version of the design; Invisible SF, noting the Mission would have become an arcade; part of an online exhibit at the Bancroft Library on the plan; and Rex Bell’s detailed look at what might have been. That contains the best epitaph for the scheme that I’ve seen:

On April 18, 1906, a powerful earthquake literally shook The City to its foundations. The subsequent fire destroyed Burnham’s original plans and drawings, which were stored at City Hall. Daniel Burnham’s dream and vision for San Francisco, which had come close to being realized, perished that day.

Three maps of London from the 1600s, showing Wren’s plan and how it completely failed to come into existence. (via, via, via.)

Top: A Plan for Rebuilding the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666; Designed by that Great Architect Sr Chrisr. Wren; & approved by King and Parliament, but unhappily defeated by Faction.

Bottom left: A Map or Grovndplot Of The Citty Of London, With The Svbvrbes Thereof.

Bottom right: Large And Accurate Map Of The City Of London. Ichnographically describing all the Streets, Lanes, Alleys, Courts, Yards, Churches, Halls and Houses, &c.

archiveofaffinities:

Mies van der Rohe, Original Design of No. 1 Poultry, London, England 

No. 1 Poultry ended up being a building by James Stirling, which is more sympathetic to the existing street plan but otherwise no less of a contrast to the buildings around it.

less-ismore:

HERMAN HERTZBERGER 

Centraal Beheer, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, 1967-72. Axonometric drawing.

RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2012.

That’s nice, that.

NO301 site plan, North Greenwich.

This has been in my drafts folder for probably two years, so I have no idea where it was from originally. I just like maps, and lines, and black and white, and I’m rescuing it.

Edit: diamond geezer reminds me that it’s the planning application for a hotel by the Dome which is still not built. All the planning documents have gone (except, through the random chance that I liked it and saved it, this one).

An axonometric drawing of the new Tottenham Court Road ticket hall, complete with art by Daniel Buren, from the page for the project on Art on the Underground. (thanks, Chris.)

London Transport - Arsenal station design sketches, August 1930 (by Mikey):

A sketch from the offices London Transport Architects illustrating the proposed reconstruction of the facade of Arsenal station in 1933. This swept away the 1906 Leslie Green facade and delivered this uncompromising ‘moderne’ elevation that largely survives to this day. Given the huge LT roundel on the facade and the two cantilevered versions there’s no doubting it is a tube station!

See also: Holborn station reconstruction sketches, 1933 (by the same uploader).

Allen Ginsberg’s photograph of Neal Cassady and Natalie Jackson in San Francisco, as seen in the ‘Beat Memories’ slide show at NYTimes.com.

A plan of Liège-Guillemins station, by Santiago Calatrava, at {Voice Maker}SPACE.

Londonist covers the Feix & Merlin proposal, one of five for the Grade II listed gasholders, in Playground Proposal For Kings Cross.