Abstract

Architecture, landscape architecture and urban design are seldom merely benign aesthetic propositions. With its victory in the Spanish-American War, the United States unexpectedly found itself in possession of an empire. Within a volcanic climate of patriotic fervour, Washington’s new imperial status galvanized interest in improving the city in a manner commensurate with its enlarged role. On the strength of his work at the World’s Columbian Exposition, celebrated architect Daniel Hudson Burnham took the lead in Washington’s transformation and urban design became his medium for imperialist expression. This potent mechanism’s deployment would not be confined to the imperial hearth. The United States soon set its sights on modernizing, that is ‘Americanizing’, Manila, the antique capital of its newly-acquired Philippine colony, and similarly charged Burnham with the task. Overtly emulating the British Raj in India, he was also to design a wholly new summer capital there. This essay canvasses Burnham’s work at the American and Philippine capitals, along with his vicarious hand in the design of a new model American town in the Panama Canal Zone, considering it through the lens of imperialism. The location and imperial purpose of these projects also reminds us that – at least from an antipodean perspective – in the early 20th century, Great Britain held no monopoly on empire.