Burnham Park
Burnham Park is the very heart of Baguio City in the Philippines.
It is located at the most valuable piece of Baguio real estate and is free for the enjoyment of visitors and residents alike.
The 'mother of all parks' in the Summer Capital of the Philippines, all other developments like the main shopping area Session Road, City Hall, Baguio Cathedral and the Baguio City Market were built around it.
Designed by and named after premier American architect and urban planner, Daniel Hudson Burnham, who also designed the original plan for Baguio City. Burnham Park remains, to this day, one of the Philippines' most well known and best-loved parks.
It retains much of Daniel Burnham's original design and lay-out a century ago, with a few features added, in true Filipino fashion, to make it a vibrant center of activity for everyone to enjoy.
Burnham Park has 12 cluster areas: the man-made lake with rowboats for hire, a childrens playground, the skating rink, the Rose Garden, the Orchidarium, Igorot Garden, Melvin Jones Grandstand, the Athletic Bowl, a Picnic Grove, the Japanese Peace Tower, Pine Trees of the World and Sunshine Park.
Originally designed as a much-needed green park, to provide a bustling city with a peaceful environment with wide open green spaces, Burnham Park under Filipino administration is now an amusement park with boating, bicycle and skating areas, sports and gaming areas, plus a few eateries.
Who Was Daniel H. Burnham?
"Make no little plans for they have no magic to stir men's blood..."
- Daniel H. Burnham
Burnham (1846-1912) was one of Chicago's greatest architects and planners, whose Philippine resume includes Dewey (now Roxas Boulevard) in Manila, Philippines as well as Baguio City itself, which was both a bustling mining and and recreational town!
Mr. Burham had grand visions for everything he designed. In 1904, the Philippine capital city of Manila, he developed the areas outside the walled city of Intramuros, with a great emphasis on classic-al buildings and wide open spaces, taking into consi-deration the Philippines' Spanish influence as Spain had just six years before turned the Philippines over to the Americans.
For Baguio, he 'forced' a splendid geometric pattern amid rolling hills and wind-ing roads, which is what we know now as Burnham Park, around which the rest of the city was built.
Quick Links
- Burnham Park: Then & Now by Jonathan Best @Baguio Insider
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