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Burnham's public waterfront mandate
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People often confuse and conflate Burnham's and Montgomery Ward's ideas about the lakefront. In fact, they were diametrically opposed to each other.
Burnham proposed a cultural center (new Art Institute, Crerar Library, Field Museum) in Grant Park while Ward was fighting for the idea that there could be no buildings whatsoever in the park. But that prohibition only covers the part between Randolph and 11th Place. Meanwhile, the Lakefront Protection Ordinance of 1974 merely sets out some goals and procedural steps to be followed. So the only thing required for a new museum—or for that matter a new stadium, new condo tower, or new nuclear-powered auto crusher and slaughterhouse—right next to the lakefront is for the Plan Commission to vote twice.