The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 laid out a temporary 'White City' on some 600 acres of Olmsted's Jackson Park, with monumental neoclassical buildings designed under Daniel Burnham as director of works. Its ordered axes, uniform cornice lines and gleaming white facades offered visitors an idealised vision of civic grandeur in contrast to the unplanned industrial city. The fair is widely seen as the spark for the City Beautiful movement, which sought to reform cities through monumental civic centres, boulevards and beautification. Its influence spread to Washington, Cleveland, Detroit and beyond.
The fair launched the City Beautiful movement and made grand civic design a leading model for American urban improvement around 1900.
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