Burnham Kelly

Urban planner Burnham Kelly was dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University from 1960 to 1971. Kelly, whose maternal grandfather was Daniel Burnham, received his undergraduate degree in 1933 from Williams College, following study at the University of Paris, where he received a diploma in 1932. He completed a law degree at the Harvard University School of Law in 1936 and worked for two years at the Providence, Rhode Island, law firm Greenough, Lyman & Cross, before studying city planning at MIT, where he received his master's degree in 1941. During his military service in World War II, he was a member of the Advisory Commission for the Office of Civil Defense and the Commission on Fortification; he also worked in army intelligence in Europe. After the war Kelly taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he remained until joining the Cornell faculty in 1960. Kelly wrote numerous journal articles and two books on prefabricated homes. He was active in many organizations related to planning and design, including the American Institute of Planning, the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Planning Officials, the Housing Association of Metropolitan Boston, the New York State Council on Architecture, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the American Law Institute Model Land Development Code Advisory Committee. His papers are archived at Cornell University.