Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the Beaux-Arts movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ever produced." A successful Chicago architect, he was selected as Director of Works for the 1892–93 World's Columbian Exposition, colloquially referred to as "The White City". He had prominent roles in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including the Plan of Chicago, and plans for Manila, Baguio and downtown Washington, D.C. He also designed several famous buildings, including a number of notable skyscrapers in Chicago, the Flatiron Building of triangular shape in New York City, Union Station in Washington D.C., London's Selfridges department store, and San Francisco's Merchants Exchange. Although best known for his skyscrapers, city planning, and for the White City, almost one third of Burnham's total output – 14.7 million square feet (1.37 million square meters) – consisted of buildings for shopping. Early life Burnham was born in Henderson, New York, the son of Elizabeth Keith (Weeks) and Edwin Arnold Burnham. He was raised in the teachings of the Swedenborgian, also called The New Church which ingrained in him the strong belief that man should strive to be of service to others. At the age of eight, Burnham moved to Chicago and his father established there a wholesale drug business which became a success. Burnham was not a good student, but he was good at drawing. He moved to the eastern part of the country at the age of 18 to be taught by private tutors in order to pass the admissions examinations for Harvard and Yale, failing both apparently because of a bad case of test anxiety. In 1867, when he was 21 he returned to Chicago and took an apprenticeship as a draftsman under William LeBaron Jenney of the architectural firm Loring & Jenney. Architecture seemed to be the calling he was looking for, and he told his parents that he wanted to become "the greatest architect in the city or country". Nevertheless, the young Burnham still had a streak of wanderlust in him, and in 1869 he left his apprenticeship to go to Nevada with friends to try mining gold, at which he failed. He then ran for the Nevada state legislature and failed to be elected. Broke, he returned again