Broadacre City was an urban or suburban development concept proposed by

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

throughout most of his lifetime. He presented the idea in his book ''The Disappearing City'' in 1932. A few years later he unveiled a very detailed twelve-by-twelve-foot (3.7 × 3.7 m) scale model representing a hypothetical four-square-mile (10 km²) community. The model was crafted by the student interns who worked for him at

Taliesin Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the ''Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the court ...

, and financed by Edgar Kaufmann. It was initially displayed at an Industrial Arts Exposition in the Forum at the

Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th Street and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span th ...

starting on April 15, 1935. After the New York exposition, Kaufmann arranged to have the model displayed in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

at an exposition titled "New Homes for Old", sponsored by the

Federal Housing Administration The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), also known as the Office of Housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is a United States government agency founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, created in part by ...

. The exposition opened on June 18 on the 11th floor of

Kaufmann's Kaufmann's was a department store that originated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Summary The store was owned in the early 20th century by Edgar J. Kaufmann, patron of the famous Fallingwater house. In the post-war years, the store became a regio ...

store. Wright went on to refine the concept in later books and in articles until his death in 1959. Many of the building models in the concept were completely new designs by Wright, while others were refinements of older ones, some of which had rarely been seen. Broadacre City was the antithesis of a city and the

apotheosis Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The term ha ...

of the newly born suburbia, shaped through Wright's particular vision. It was both a planning statement and a socio-political scheme, inspired by

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

, by which each U.S. family would be given a plot of land from the federal lands reserves, and a Wright-conceived community would be built anew from this.''The Disappearing City'', in ''Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, volume 3: 1931-39''. Edited by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, introduction by Kenneth Frampton (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York City, 1993), 91: "In the City of Tomorrow ground space will be reckoned by the acre: an acre to the family." In a sense it was the exact opposite of

transit-oriented development In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between ...

. There is a train station and a few office and apartment buildings in Broadacre City, but the apartment dwellers are expected to be a small minority. All important transport is done by

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

, and the

pedestrian A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically. The meaning of pedestrian is displayed with ...

can exist safely only within the confines of the plots where most of the population dwells. In his book ''Urban Planning Theory since 1945'', Nigel Taylor considers the planning methodology of this type of city to be Blueprint planning, which came under heavy criticism in the late 1950s by many critics such as

Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' ...

, in her book ''

The Death and Life of Great American Cities ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United Sta ...

''.

Similar models

Some of the earlier garden city ideas of the landscape architect

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...

and the urban planner

Ebenezer Howard Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication ''To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in whic ...

had much in common with Broadacre City, save for the absence of the automobile, born much later. More recently, the development of the

edge city ''Edge city'' is a term that originated in the United States for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban residential or rura ...

is like an unplanned, incomplete version of Broadacre city. The R. W. Lindholm Service Station in

Cloquet, Minnesota Cloquet ( ) is a city in Carlton County, Minnesota, United States, at the junction of Interstate 35 and Minnesota State Highway 33. Part of the city lies within the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation and serves as one of the reservation's three admi ...

, shows some of Wright's ideas for Broadacre City.

Similar models

See also

References

Further reading