Broadacre City

Context

The industrial revolution gave a ground for urban planners to anticipate and foresee the
coming future of the then cities and started a wave of urban planning. The technological
advances brought by the Industrial Revolution had produced a progressive change in lifestyle,
as well as in the urban development of the city. At the beginning of the 20th century, the
peripheral extension of the railway brought with it the growth of the cities and with it, a
concern for the control of urban growth. Suburban neighborhoods started to grow faster than
urban centers. This tendency was accepted by some North American urbanists initiating a
process towards the horizontal city as opposed to the congestion of the vertical cities. This
horizontality brought with it the need for the creation of the first highways allowing rapid
access from the congested urban centers to the new residential neighborhoods. Many of these
plans were carried out but nevertheless the most complete formulation of these thoughts was
the idealized version of the car city of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Wright began to create Broadacre City around 1924. He managed to integrate almost all the
important philosophical currents of urban thought. His idea had many affinities with the
philosophical thought of the Association for the Regional Planning of America: the rejection
of the big city, the populist antipathy against the financial capital and the great proprietors,
the same anarchist antagonism against the central government, the effects liberators of new
technologies. But there are also differences because Wright did not want men and women to
unite in a cooperative system, but to live as free individuals; he did not want to unite the
countryside with the city but to merge them with the intention of slowing down the slow
deterioration of rural North America begun after the end of the First World War. The new
technologies would end with the geographical limits in addition to being within reach of the
poor man. In addition, there would be new construction materials (glass, concrete, wood
sheets, etc.) that would allow new types of construction, the vertical city being already
absurd. For this type of city and with these technical advances Wright elaborated what he
called "Usonian dwelling".

So, his concept and context of the Broadacre city wasn’t only a mere reaction to the
industrialization or consequence of urbanization. His ideas and visions were deeply
embedded into his concept of Broadacre city. His vision of Organic architecture, Prairie
school and his lifelong affinity towards nature all merged to give his prophetic vision to
Modern America.
Planning and concept

Broadacre City is a bold statement of Wright’s sub urban vision, presented in his book The
Disappearing City published in 1932 A.D. He even unveiled a 12 foot by 12 foot model at
Industrial Arts Exposition. Broadacre city as Wright remarked “We are going to call this city
for individual the Broadacre city because it is based upon minimum of an acre to the family.”
(The Disappearing City pg. 17) .Wright’s ideal society was an absolute rejection of prevailed
American cities of the first half of the 20th century.

Broadacre city as drawn by Wright (britinnica.com)

Broadacre is based on the principle of crossing axes around which the industries and
automotive services are connected. The grid allows organizing and orienting the buildings
themselves. There is no deterministic zoning, the functions are scattered. The model does not
suggest any centrality or concentration. The highways, planned wide and comfortable, unify
and separate at the same time endless series of diversified units: farms, schools, factories,
offices, housing, shop, theatre, church, road markets. Functional units are integrated with
each other to result in the balance between industry and agriculture laying the foundation for
democratic ruralism.

Broadacre City is a collection of objects. It is a patchwork of plot sand small buildings laid
here or there, almost at random. There is no identical building, standardization does not
produce repetition, but rather allows the expression of an individual aesthetic. It is an organic
prefabrication that offers quality and variety. A second network of channels connects the rest
of the services and equipment. Parallel to the artery, there is a band of orchards and
vineyards, bardée on one side by a large parking lot and the other by a shopping centre. This
band works as a noise filter that separates the living part of the public and community
part. The habitat occupies the central strip in which are scattered on both sides the services of
proximity. Alongside this strip is a large lake where one finds the sports club, the offices, and
the stadium. In this same band are located the aquarium, the zoo, the botanical garden and the
agronomic research building. It stops at the foot of a hill, where are the luxurious houses of
"aristocracy” Broadacre. The size of the houses is given by the number of cars it can
accommodate: house for one car, house for two cars, up to a house for five cars. The car
becomes the sign of wealth and individual freedom. Broadacre City is home to as many
centres as there are houses.

Quadraple housing plan

The Usonian house is the atom of the city and society of Broadacre City. It is a domestic
ideal, which mixes habitat and work. The house hosts a kind of laboratory workshop in
addition to the main housing unit. It is a modern version of the primitive cabin, which is built
in total continuity with nature. A blind wall separates domestic intimacy from the street and
opens onto the garden. The house shelters are no more than the inhabited enclosure of a
garden. Architecture is subordinated to nature. The house is without deep foundations, laid
only on a slab of cement. This coupled with the flexible standardization of Frank Lloyd
“Wright gives the house a certain adaptability and evolution of the construction. There is no
real public space in the classical sense. The street becomes road, and is not a social place,
where a place of exchange. For Wright, the road was a culture that he carried to the rank of
monument. It is for him a system of embellishment. He says: "Imagine large motorways, well
integrated in the landscape, without any cut, ugly superstructures (telegraphic and telegraph
poles), free from all the garish posters. “The meeting and convergence point of the people of
Broadacre City is the community centre, the markets are the vital organs of the city, and it is
a sort of sketch of the future modern shopping enter." market spaces, located near a road,
consisting of large and beautiful pavilions, will be conceived as places of exchange not only
for commercial products but also for cultural productions .Such conditions imply, on the one
hand, the integration of the commercial offer and, on the other hand, the distribution of all
possible products for the natural necessities of the Living City” (Scribd retour thesis :
Amehad Kabil )

“Broadacre city rationalized coordinated and repackaged the American order of things.
Wright simply made existing land settlement and land ownership pattern coherent and
visible.” – K Pual Zygas
Wright believed that the problems of the American city, and the social woes it fostered, could
be solved through planned decentralization. Neither urban nor rural, Broadacre City was not
really a city at all, but an organic community that united the “desirable features of the city
with the freedom of the ground in a natural, happy union.”22 At its core, Broadacre was
founded the premise that every resident should have direct contact with the land. This
according to Wright would save man form “mobocracy” and safeguard his natural right to
individuality.

Characteristic features

At Broadacre city there was one-acre land units meant for each nuclear families.
Expanding from this center, Wright designated distinct areas that included: little farm
units; “luxurious” type (non-farm) housing; orchards; hotel; sanitarium; music garden;
zoo; aquarium; little factories; scientific and agricultural research; and a “small school for
small children.” On one panel of the Rockefeller Model were a series of Orwellian
negations that included:

 No Slum. No Scum
 No traffic problems
 No glaring cement roads or walks

Quadraple housing exterior Quadraple housing interior

The city resembled modern sub urban areas very closely on the following accounts:

 Nuclear families in majority part of the land sprawl and smaller roads connected
onto larger roads
 Families owned certain land and promoted agriculture and other productiveness in
the land.
 Cars and other automobiles easily affordable for a family as Wright believed
every family should possess the capability to afford a car.
 City alike plan

Crossing axes of the Broadacre

Wright aimed to provide more light, more air and more general spital freedom in the
ideal establishment of civilization. Wright’s design was equally political as it was
more dystopian utopia. During the period of Great Depression of 1930s, when Wright
proposed the building he considered architects to be the city’s head planner and to
overcome the great depression Wright saw land ownership as a democratizing force,
and part of his plan for Broadacres was to give every family an acre of land to call
their own.
Reflection

What can we learn from Wright’s Broadacre?

Broadacre City was the antithesis of a city and the apotheosis of the newly
born suburbia, shaped through Wright's particular vision. It was both a planning
statement and a socio-political scheme by which each U.S. family would be given a
one acre (4,000 m²) plot of land from the federal lands reserves, and a Wright-
conceived community would be built anew from this. In a sense it was the exact
opposite of transit-oriented development. (scribed.com)
Though Broadacre was never really absolutely realized but the little elements of the
plan, the houses, the intersections, theatre, the helicopters and automobiles all reveal
its scope. How much the future life and way of living resembles to the one Wright’s
forecasted.
"Broadacre City is the reality that is today, I think to some extent the interstate
highways, the rise of massive shopping malls, the cookie-cutter developments in
suburbia — they are Broadacre, and Broadacre is them in a lot of ways. Not necessary
planned, more in a piecemeal fashion. If you look at Broadacre City piece by piece
and drawing by drawing, sure enough almost everything he designed you can find in
there, Broadacre was a testing ground for perfection, or at the very least something
more civilized than the chaos that seemed to define 20th century life.” Lapping .

Wright aimed to create a beauty and art in urban planning. Often compared Le
Corbuiser , Wright was ahead of Le Corbuiser in terms of collective beauty and arts in
urban pattern. Wright created a utopian world for all Americans. His architectural
works has sought identity and depiction of his organic architecture. Wright foresaw
that his model for the perfect community would probably never actually be built to his
specifications. He believed that perhaps America was too broken to recover from the
degradation of the city; too blind to the possibilities of what he saw as a better way of
life His designs aimed for future world on many aspects resonated the present need.
Urban sprawl has become a reality and the innate American dream land and home
ownership has been a sheer reality. In this aspects Wright’s future city speaks the
realms of the future.
 Criticisms of Broadacre:

Broadacre has heavily been criticized for being too romantic and having an unrealistic
ground as a hole. Sadly, at least for Wright, his version of the architect as ruler would
not come to pass. But just about everything else in his plan became an accepted part
of the American landscape .With the exponential increase in population in last 50
years, Wright’s design never seen to address the problem of population density.
Wrights Broadacre has always been American fairy tale planning. The way everything
has been allocated in regards to resources and other aspects Broadacre falls short.
. Also the land per acre division only sounds good on papers rather than practices
because it is just too hard to implement. Also Wight’s fascination for architects as
ultimate controller becomes illogical when whole city is governed by architects.
Furthermore, in regards of cultural aspect whole Broadacre becomes stagnant.
“The two major flaws in the [Broadacre City] model are
1) the lack of any explicit recognition of cultural diversity
2) the minimal evidence of ecological variation.”
– Frederick Steiner, 1995, p. 132
Some spaces Wright never designed:
• Religious diversity
• Social services
• Age-segregated (senior citizen) facilities
• Club houses/association rooms
Wright’s model lacks the common communal spaces such as churches, museums etc.
which realistically makes the design impractical to a greater extent.

Conclusion
Wright’s Broadacre has been often considered as a work of art rather than a plausible
urban design. His sense to coming future in the design is praiseworthy and the way he
merges the urban and rural context in organic realms is something only Wright does
meticulously. And yet the practicality of the design fails to reach the height which
Wright usually does.
We as researchers for the report got a chance to understand both the dimension of
Wright’s utopian urban design. Wright’s design is judged on a different aspect rather
than a practical or possible urban design of modern America. He somehow, has lured
us to dream for this utopian world where the major American dreams are accounted
for house and land. His designs of cross overs and other aspects of designs are
absolutely praiseworthy and shows us today how he was ahead of his time.