AKANKSHA 1205

BALPANDE 1220
GEETA GUJARATHI 1220
SHREYA MAHAJAN 1264
KASHMIRA SONAR 1267
POONAM WADEKAR
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Broadacre Citywas an urban or

suburban development concept
A TRULY
proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright
throughout most of his lifetime.
PROPHETI
He presented the idea in his bookThe
Disappearing Cityin 1932.
C VISION
A few years later he unveiled a very
detailed twelve by twelve foot (3.7
OF
3.7 m) scale model representing a
hypothetical four square mile (10km)
MODERN
community. AMERICA
ACCORDING TO
HIM, CITIES
WOULD NO
LONGER BE
CENTRALIZED;
NO LONGER
BEHOLDEN TO
THE
PEDESTRIAN OR
THE CENTRAL
BUSINESS
DISTRICT
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Europe sets the stage

for Wright's comeback.
Le Corbusier formulates
his ideas for the future,
designing
acontemporary city for
3 million inhabitants. In
1922 the principles are
clear. This city is dense,
rational, organised; to
put it in a nutshell
-urban.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Wright's answer is as
radical as it is
diametrically opposed.
Broadacre isn't a city;
it is alandscape.
Decentralised in
organisation it is self-
sufficient in supply,
republican in
constitution, and
populated by auto -
mobile citizens.

Centred on the
homestead, the single
family house,
Broadacre sprawls.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA
Wright perceives himself and his rebellion as "an army under siege". The
atmosphere in Taliesin at the time is described like this:
It was not a civilized situation - it was a heroic one. VI.) 5

From this milieu emerges the plan for a community laying out their cities
according to family values, spirituality and knowledge.
Everyone owns land for cultivation, at least oneAcre(4046,856 m2, 165 by
264 Feet) Themodel plancovers four square miles.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Broadacre is a community without experts. Everyone does everything.

Everyone's a farmer - industrial worker - artist: reminiscence of the
"Arts and Crafts" movement from Wright's beginnings.
Theideal for labouris self-fulfilment.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

There is no
administration - no
bureaucracy - but
thearchitect, who
plans the city and
settles its affairs.
He arranges who
may own how many
acres of land and
where roads start
and lead to, thus
preventing property
speculation as well
as congestion
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Broadacre is a continuous metropolitan region of low density. Areas

designated to serve similar purposes are allocated functionally (parallel along
traffic systems of more than regional importance like
monorailandmotorway):
trade, entertainment, industry, agriculture, housing etc..
Arrangements are selective - idealized - but not exclusive.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

The city starts with the

single family house.
Due to Broadacre's
economical logic it is
being built by oneself
(in a DIY network).
Using standardized
elements and partly
prefabricated building
modules it is fairly
extendable .
But first of all it is
affordable, although
money has almost no
relevance in
Broadacre.

TheUsonian Houseas
a typology evolves.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Everywhere now
human voice and
vision are
annihilating distance
- penetrating walls.
Wherever the citizen
goes (even as he
goes) he has
information, lodging
and entertainment.
He may now be
within easy reach of
general or
immediate
distribution of
everything he needs
Mobility and information conveying systems are to have or to know:
prerequisites for Broadacre. All that he may
Wright esteems the importance of require as he lives
"communication machines" as follows: becomes not only
more worthy of him
and his freedom but
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

The road is a
symbol of
individual
freedom.Carsar
en't simply
contemporary or
modern, they
represent
democracy
itself. The
technology to
cross and to
communicate
long distance
facilitates:

air, light and The notion of an aircraft in everyone's front yard is a

freedom of convincing image.
movement. Total mobility is inevitable.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA
Resolving the volume of traffic as well as coming to terms with
prosperity shift focus. Horizontality and mobility are at the centre of
attention in master plan simulations of the time.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Instead of improving social order to achieve happiness for mankind, we

apply technology to do so. Before, thenew societyguaranteed to
handle progress reasonably - now advanced technology and science
(considered an instrument to control these advancements) are trusted
to solve the contradictions of current states.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

By1958Broadacre remains true to its socioeconomic concept, but

generates different images. It sells via monuments,Frank Lloyd Wright's
monuments.The 'air-rotor' [helicopter] becomes a trademark.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA
Still, the conclusive statement by Robert Fishman's 1977 analysis of
Broadacre City constitutes the keenest critique possible.

[] The plan wasdemocraticnot because it had been debated in a

legislature or approved in an election but because it was
representative of the nation's deepest feelings []
 THE BALM FOR WHAT AILS
AMERICA

According to Wright,
technology and planning
were tools in the great
struggle for social reform.

Frank Lloyd Wright

believed that by designing
a better city, America's
social failures would simply
dissolve.

He imagined himself as
someone who could solve
a huge number of social
issues and social problems
through design.

The key to Wright's utopia,

of course, were the
tremendous technological
advances made at the
dawn of the 20th century
perhaps none more
important than the car.
Broadacre City is really a
THE GAS STATION WOULD BECOME THE MOST IMPORTANT MARKETPLACE OF
vision of life as gas station.
BROADACRES
 VISION OF THE GAS STATION AND THE ALT UNIVERSE
PULP SCI- FI
In his 1932 book The Disappearing City,
Wright explained that the answer to the
problem of how the people of this utopian
community might buy goods.

In the gasoline service station may be seen

the beginning of an important advance agent
of decentralization by way of distribution and
also the beginning of the establishment of the
Broadacre City.

Wherever the service station happens to be

naturally located, these now crude and
seemingly insignificant units will grow and
expand into various distributing center for
merchandise of all sorts. They are already
doing so in the Southwest to a great extent.

The vehicles were sleek and modernbut

they were shown floating across pastoral,
exurban scenes of wide open spaces and
WRIGHT'S
verdant DRAWINGS FOR BROADACRE
fields
LOOKED AS THOUGH THEY HAD BEEN
TORN FROM AN ALT-UNIVERSE PULP SCI-FI
COMIC
 AN UNBUILT VISIONTHAT'S ALL AROUND US AND THE
REALITY TODAY
Broadacre City is the reality that is today. 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 we look at Broadacre City piece by piece and

drawing by drawing, sure enough almost everything
he designed we 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.

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.

We got the cars; the sprawl; the gas stations. Cities as

diverse as Los Angeles and Houston and Janesville,
Wisconsin are in some ways versions of Wright's
Broadacre dream. But in the end, for better and for
worse, America never saw the rise of that architect
king.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS
VEHICLES

THE VEHICLES
WERE SLEEK
AND MODERN
BUT THEY
WERE SHOWN
FLOATING
ACROSS
PASTORAL,
EXURBAN
SCENES OF
WIDE OPEN
SPACES AND
VERDANT
FIELDS
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS VISION FOR
BROADACRE

In 1935, Wright wrote an article for theArchitectural

Recorddescribing the emerging technologies behind his vision
for this new utopia. It would be a feat of modern technology,
built upon some of America's greatest strengths:

1.The motor car: general mobilization of the human being.

2.Radio, telephone and telegraph: electrical inter-
communication becoming complete.
3.Standardized machine-shop production: machine invention
plus scientific discovery.
 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHTS UTOPIAN
DYSTOPIA

Butterfly Wing Bridge, Spring Green, Wisconsin 1947

Rogers Lacy Hotel, Dallas 1946-47
Beth Sholom Synagogue, Pennsylvania 1953-59
Twin Suspension BridgesandCommunity Center, Pittsburgh 1947
Huntington Hartford Play Resort, Hollywood 1947
Self Service Garage, Pittsburgh 1949
(To the right of illustration 20; click image to enlarge)
Automobile Objective and Planetarium for Gordon Strong, Maryland 1925
Marin County Civic Centre, San Rafael, California, 1957 - 70