Background
Charles Mulford Robinson was born in New York, United States on April 30, 1869, the son of Arthur and Jane Howell (Porter) Robinson, who soon moved to Rochester, New York, United States
(The year 1912 was an important milestone for Colorado Spr...)
The year 1912 was an important milestone for Colorado Springs. Still a young city of only 40 years, the easy-going Little London began the journey to become a metropolitan presence on Colorado’s Front Range. The city of Colorado Springs faced choices that would patently impact its future. The numerous trains created unsightly air pollution, the extremely wide streets presented challenges for pedestrians and costly paving, and the deficiency in developed neighborhood parks was in contrast with the abundant city park acreage. It is interesting to read about the concerns of 1912 in the context of the choices the city faces now, 100 years later. The city’s potential was clear to civic architect Charles Mulford Robinson, though he acknowledged the city’s previous planning mistakes and ill-conceived design choices, like the grid of wide streets and the “unfortunate spacing” of median “parking strips” on Cascade Avenue. Robinson’s recommendations, reproduced as this book, were formed from his observations described in two reports, "A Report for the City of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and El Paso Good Roads Association" on the Development of the Streets, published in 1905, and "A General Plan for the Improvement of Colorado Springs," presented to City Council on May 29, 1912. Reading Robinson’s 100-year-old observations and recommendations, you may find some of them remarkable and others ridiculous. Looking at Colorado Springs today, the evidence of his vision and the City Beautiful movement philosophy are visible in the landscaping of the streets, the numerous neighborhood parks, and the preservation of the mountain views. Perhaps you will appreciate the forethought of those who cared about the growth and planning of the city. Knowing that you and others care about these issues today, the year 2012 can mark the beginning of another era “characterized by a general civic awakening.”
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developer editor journalist professor theorist writer
Charles Mulford Robinson was born in New York, United States on April 30, 1869, the son of Arthur and Jane Howell (Porter) Robinson, who soon moved to Rochester, New York, United States
He attended school there and in 1891 received the degree of A. B. from the University of Rochester.
After college and between trips abroad he became an associate editor of the Rochester Post-Express, 1891-1902; in 1904 he was employed in an editorial capacity by the Public Ledger (Philadelphia), and in 1907 by the Municipal Journal (New York). He was also a regular contributing editor to the Survey, the Architectural Record, the National Municipal Review, and the Boston Transcript. His career as a city planner began with a series of three articles on municipal improvement contributed to the Atlantic Monthly in 1899, which aroused such interest that Harper's Magazine asked for a similar series on civic improvement abroad. The abundant material gathered in preparation for the articles was used later in a book that, strangely enough in view of its later success, went begging for a publisher and was finally brought out at the author's expense under the title of The Improvement of Towns and Cities; or The Practical Basis of Civic 'sthetics (1901). This was followed in 1903 by Modern Civic Art; or The City Made Beautiful, and in 1908 by The Call of the City, a collection of essays and verse. In 1911, largely as the result of a year at Harvard as a guest of the University, he published The Width and Arrangement of Streets; A Study in Town Planning, which five years later he rewrote as City Planning: With Special Reference to the Planning of Streets and Lots. His work was not limited to writing, however. Early in his career he served as acting secretary of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association, made up largely of landscape architects, park commissioners and superintendents, and a few public-spirited citizens; and in 1904 he was influential in forming the American Civic Association at St. Louis, a union of the American Park Association and a federation of civic improvement societies in the Middle West. For a while he acted as secretary but soon retired from the position in order to devote more time to his increasingly active practice. His work as a consultant began when Buffalo, New York, through its recently formed Society for Beautifying Buffalo, asked him to make a report (published in 1902) upon local conditions. Later he was consulted by many other cities, among them Detroit, Denver, Omaha, Los Angeles, Oakland, Cal. , Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Columbus, Ohio; his recommendations for all of these and for many towns, large and small, have been embodied in published reports. In the Detroit project Robinson was associated with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. ; in Omaha with George B. Ford and E. P. Goodrich; and in Columbus with Austin W. Lord, Albert Kelsey, Charles N. Lowrie, and H. A. McNeil. In 1915 he associated himself professionally with William Pitkin, Jr. , a landscape architect of Rochester, New York. In 1913 he accepted and held until his death the Chair of Civic Design established at the University of Illinois, the first of its kind in any American university although the subject had been taught for years at Harvard. Robinson's approach to city planning was primarily an 'esthetic one and his role for he was virtually without technical training--that of publicist and teacher rather than technical designer. It was to the lasting advantage of the profession in which he so ably pioneered that its cause was sponsored by a man of such broad vision, rare initiative, and good judgment.
(The year 1912 was an important milestone for Colorado Spr...)
Member of the American Civic Association at St. Louis,
Member of the union of the American Park Association
He died after a brief illness on Sunday, December 30, 1917, at Albany, New York, United States, survived by his widow, Eliza Ten Eyck Pruyn of Albany, whom he had married in 1896. After his death appeared The City Sleeps (1920), a volume of his verse and essays compiled and edited by Mrs. Robinson.
