Edward H. Bennett Collection

Bennett (1874–1954) was one of the first young architects with a Beaux-Arts education hired to work in Daniel Burnham’s Chicago office. With Burnham he co-authored the Report on a Plan for San Francisco (1905) and the influential Plan of Chicago (1909). Bennett maintained a national practice from his Chicago office for nearly four decades after the publication of Plan of Chicago. From the Chicago model Bennett developed comparable City Beautiful plans for numerous cities, including Minneapolis, Detroit, Portland, Oregon, and Ottawa, Canada. With the onset of the Depression, Bennett’s most important professional activity was the chairmanship of the Board of Architects. The Board was responsible for the development of the Federal Triangle in Washington, DC, a large complex of government buildings housing the Departments of Labor, Commerce, and Justice, the Post Office, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Trade Commission, and the National Archives. The collection contains correspondence, project files, published and unpublished speeches and articles, photographs, architectural drawings, and reports. View finding aid.View selected images from this collection.Find all Edward H. Bennett digital images. Collection access:Collections may be accessed in the Franke Reading Room of the Research Center at The Art Institute of Chicago, by appointment only. For further information, consult the FAQ. Finding aids by subjectBrowse all finding aidsBrowse images and mediaOral histories Contact the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives:archives@artic.edu