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Broadacre City
New York, NY, USA

Broadacre City
1932-1954

New York, NY, USA

    Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, first presented to the public in 1935, was a provocative and comprehensive vision for the reorganization of the entire American landscape. Conceived as a direct response to the social and spatial inequities of industrial cities, Broadacre proposed a radical model of decentralization rooted in the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy and individual autonomy. At the heart of Wright’s proposal was the belief that each American family should have access to a one-acre plot of land, enabling them to live, work, and cultivate in harmony with the landscape. This spatial arrangement, supported by the rise of the automobile and advances in telecommunications, would dissolve the rigid hierarchies of the modern city and replace them with a distributed network of self-sufficient homesteads. Broadacre City challenged prevailing notions of urbanism by rejecting density, centralization, and corporate control. Instead, it envisioned a society grounded in small-scale agriculture, localized manufacturing, and direct democratic governance. Wright called for the individual ownership of homes and workplaces, while advocating public control over utilities such as power, transportation, and monetary systems. In doing so, he sought to dismantle the economic and spatial systems that enabled absentee ownership and unearned privilege. Importantly, Wright did not view the city merely as a collection of buildings and infrastructure, but as a living “society in action.” Although the project was never realized, the concept of Broadacre City became a statement on the role of architecture and planning in shaping a more equitable, spiritually grounded, and human-centered civilization.

    Project Leads

    • Frank Lloyd Wright

    Organizations

    • Taliesin Fellowship
    • New Deal Resettlement Administration (RA)

    Stages

    • Master Planning

    Site

    Broadacre City was first unveiled as a 12-foot-by-12-foot physical model at Rockefeller Center in New York City, a setting that underscored the boldness of Wright’s challenge to urban density and centralized power. The model depicted a vast, gridded landscape of individually owned one-acre plots, each equipped with a home, farmland, and workspace. Roads and railways threaded through the terrain, reflecting Wright’s belief in the transformative power of the automobile and modern communications. This theoretical city was not defined by towering buildings or compact infrastructure, but by its open spatial order and ideals of democratic self-determination. As an exhibition, Broadacre City functioned as a conceptual site and an illustration of Wright’s design for utopia—urging viewers to reconsider the relationship between society and space, and to imagine a future city rooted in equality, beauty, and the individual agency of every citizen.

    Typology

    Urban planning

    Land use type

    Mixed Development

    Size

    144 square feet (exhibition model)

    Population/density

    1 acre/dwelling unit

    Timeline

    1932-1954

    People

    Awards

    Media

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    No records.

    Texts

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