City Beautiful Movement

The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. promoted beauty not only for its own sake, but also to create moral and civic virtue among urban populations. Advocates of the philosophy believed that such beautification could thus promote a harmonious social order that would increase the quality of life.

Read more about City Beautiful Movement:  In Australia

Famous quotes containing the words city, beautiful and/or movement:

    “The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.”
    —Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)

    “When all who had money and leisure
    Grew rural o’er ices and wines,
    All pleasantly toiling for pleasure,
    All hungrily pining for pines,
    And making of beautiful speeches,
    And marring of beautiful shows,
    And feeding on delicate peaches,
    And treading on delicate toes.”
    —Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)

    “Later
    Some movement is reversed and the urgent masks
    Speed toward a totally unexpected end
    Like clocks out of control.”
    —John Ashbery (b. 1927)