Frank Lloyd Wright’s theory and ideas have provoked much debate over the course of the past century. Wright’s development and promotion of the principles of organic architecture, drove his belief that the modern skyscraper city was constraining the individual democratic spirit of America and provided the theoretical basis for his conceptual urban plans (Wright, 2008; Wright, 1958). The development of his ‘Broadacres’ concept, provides a conceptual insight into how Wright proposed that the process of decentralization, driven by technological advance in the areas of communication and transportation, would seek to outwork these theoretical beliefs (Le Gates et al., 2011). The legacy of Wright’s ideas is entrenched in the development of suburban cities in the post- World War II era, despite his ideas having been criticised for being too utopian in nature, resulting in his main conceptual model, ‘Broadacres’, never coming to fruition in any concrete holistic form, leaving his legacy to be considered more prophetic than directly functional (Dougherty, 1981; Le Gates et al., 2011). Lloyd Wright may not be considered to have left a distinct physical legacy upon the outcomes of urban planning in the twentieth century, but his conceptualization still provides the basis for a particular understanding of how the modern suburban metropolis has developed in the post-industrialist era.
Frank Lloyd Wright was widely identified with an organic style of architecture and a belief in individual democratic spirit, values which underpinned his ideas about urban planning and form (Irigoyen, 2000; Le Gates et al., 2011). Organic design was centered on the idea that ‘form follows function’, an idea proposed by Louis Sullivan, one of Wright’s mentors (Theron, 1963, p.33). This influenced his belief that the form of a city should develop according to the opportunities brought by technological advance and that this pattern of development reflected a type of freedom that opposed theories advocating the imposition of a style of planning upon a landscape, rather than letting the style be created by the landscape (Irigoyen, 2000). This sense of freedom extended to Wright’s beliefs about democratic individual rights, with his insistence that individuals had a right to land as long as they lived on it, being his reaction to the role of land speculators, congestion and centralization in increasing housing prices, excluding people from the city and representing a failure of the capitalist system to allow the rugged individualism of traditional America by constraining the population (Alofsin, 2011). Wright’s vision of a classless society under the Broadacres system, particularly given his own stated preference for ‘creative originality’ over the imposition of political or economic philosophy, left his theories open to the criticism of being philosophically vague and utopian (Wright, 1958; Alofsin, 2011, pp. 22- 23). Wright also argued that design of cities should promote the maximization of experience rather than the ‘minimum for existence’ approach shown by other designers, leading to the failure of the city to add to the fulfillment and wellbeing of the individual as he believed it should (McCarter, 2006). Some scholars have reacted against these proposals, arguing that they implement too personal a set of lifestyle values upon the physical form of the city, with the construction of wellbeing coming from Wright’s creative interpretation being too confining and out of line with organic planning principles (Grabow, 1977). This belief in the rights of an individual to freedom of choice and opportunity, as well as his insistence against what he described as the accelerating power of the skyscraper city which he argued ‘enslaved’ Americans, led him to be associated with these traditional American values (Wright, 2008, p. 89; Wright, 1958; Le Gates et al., 2011). Organic architecture and the democratic principles of individual freedom and opportunity, played a key role in how Frank Lloyd Wright’s planning ideas were applied to conceptual planning and his predictions for change that would occur in the form of cities.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s key planning ideas were largely encapsulated in his ‘Broadacres’ concept, which sought to envision how organic architectural principles and the democratic spirit might be conceptually applied to issues of urban design (Le Gates et al., 2011). The idea of decentralization acted as a response to the ‘enslavement’ of society which Wright thought the industrial skyscraper city had brought, with the allocation of one acre blocks to each household forming the hub of activity and industry in Wright’s conceptual view of the city (Wright, 2008; Wright, 1958). Alongside this, Wright proposed the zoning of the city into five sections according to their need for access to main carriageways (Grabow, 1977). Wright depicted this as having the effect of redefining societal structures by removing the wage-driven economy which the machine had developed, and which had created the skyscraper city, instead allowing a more independent lifestyle through the slowing effect of a low density, post-industrialist city and greater self-sufficiency (Wright, 1958). Wright saw the development of communication and transportation technology in the form of the automobile and the telegraph, as essential in allowing this development, reducing the need for proximity to other individuals for the purposes of communication or exchange (Le Gates et al., 2011). The reduction in the need for spatial proximity afforded economic freedom to individuals in ‘Broadacres’, with the replacement of the ‘monarchy’ of centralization for the exploitation of labour by business, with a situation where decentralization provided the basis for democratic individualism (Wright, 1958). These organic principles do however contrast with today’s contemporary analysis of the reasons for urban decentralization, where function is regarded as having had distinct impact upon the form of cities through the influence that land values and taxation have on decentralization (Wassmer, 2008; Habib et al., 2011). This variation in reality from Wright’s organic principles, signals that ‘Broadacres’ was very much conceptual in nature and was a presentation of potential outcomes from the perspective of Wright’s personal values, rather than from any positivist analysis of the causes and results of the ‘skyscraper city’ which he was criticizing (Grabow, 1977). The development of decentralization through Wright’s ‘Broadacres’ concept demonstrates the outworkings of his association with traditional American values of individual freedom and democracy in the form of cities in a way that reflects his beliefs about the factors which would impact the future development of suburbia, despite the utopian nature of this vision.
The legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright is contested. Some suggest that his visions of decentralization have been the ‘evil seed’ which drove the suburban sprawl of post industrialist cities across America, while others suggested that his focus on self-sufficiency saw him as a forerunner of more environmentally friendly forms of urban development (Alofsin, 2011). While his planned community of ‘Broadacres’ has never been realized on any physically significant scale, despite attempts to convince President Franklin Roosevelt to enact it in the Great Depression era, Wright’s vision of the decentralization of the industrial city has come to pass, with the development of suburbia across the industrialised world being identified as reality in the post-World War Two era (Grabow, 1977; Dougherty, 1981). The lack of associated societal change in achieving a classless society, dominated not by a plutocratic elite, but rather a limited architect driven government as Wright proposed, creates the impression that while Wright may have predicted this change, his ideas were not the drivers of the form of this development (Alofsin, 2011; Dougherty, 1981). Norris Kelly Smith argued that the lack of political usage of these theories to drive future modes of urban development suggests that his legacy left little impact, while others have written off the societal vision of ‘Broadacres’ as utopian, however, Wright has also been suggested to have recognised the impossible nature of such a plan, suggesting that his interest lay in ‘envisioning’ changes that either would or were already occurring in the form and function of cities, placing his legacy in a prophetic rather than as a utopian light from today’s perspective (Grabow, 1977, p.199; Alofsin, 2011). From this viewpoint, we might see Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy today as being one which correctly identified the role that the social pressures of the industrial city, and the developments of new technologies, would have in causing the decentralisation of cities across the twentieth century, rather than as a planner who failed to have any concrete impacts. The comprehensive nature of the Broadacres concept has been further criticized for its imposition of Wright’s values upon society, with his promotion of a certain lifestyle, notably that of moderate self-containment and rural living, being seen as too prescriptive for the role of a planner (Grabow, 1977). However Wright noted that the ‘Broadacres’ concept contained an element of ‘symbolism’ and ‘vision’, furthering the view that the concept held a utopian value and would fulfill more of a ‘prophetic’ role in the development of urban form than a functional role (Grabow, 1977, p.119, Dougherty, 1981, p.241). As a result, it is arguable that Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy today lies largely with his contribution to our understanding of the development of the modern suburban city as an urban form.
The ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright around planning were hallmarked by his identification with traditional American values of freedom and democracy, and the decentralization theory which epitomized, in his view at least, those values within the urban context of America. His legacy in influencing urban planning may have been one of prediction and prophesy rather than concrete outcomes, but it can none-the-less be seen as an informative critique of the social pressures created by centralization and as a possible solution to those issues. Now that the suburban decentralization of cities has largely occurred as Wright predicted, contemporary planning faces dealing with the downsides of sprawl and the new types of congestion it has brought, leaving Wright’s concepts as somewhat unfashionable. However, his commentary remains important as a means of visualizing the issues with centralization and its associated socio-economic platforms that may prevent such pressures becoming an overriding force in the outcomes of modern planners.
References
- Alofsin, A. (2011). Broadacre City—Ideal and Nemesis. American Art, 25(2), 21-25.
- Dougherty, J. (1981). Broadacre City: Frank Lloyd Wright's Utopia. The Centennial Review, 25(3), 239-256.
- Grabow, S. (1977). Frank Lloyd Wright and the American City: The Broadacres Debate. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 43(2), 115-124.
- Habibi, S., & Asadi, N. (2011). Causes, results and methods of controlling urban sprawl. Procedia Engineering, 21(0), 133-141.
- Irigoyen, A. (2000). Frank Lloyd Wright in Brazil. The Journal of Architecture, 5(2), 137-157.
- Le Gates, R., Stout, F., & Wright, F. L. (2011). Broadacre city: A new community plan' from Architectural Record. The City Reader (5th ed., pp. 345-350). London: Routledge.
- McCarter, R. (2006). Frank Lloyd Wright. London: Reaktion Books.
- Theron, D. (1963). The development of American Architecture in the tradition of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, (21), 33-36.
- Wassmer, R. W. (2008). Causes of urban sprawl in the United States: Auto reliance as compared to natural evolution, flight from blight, and local revenue reliance. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 27(3), 536-555.
- Wright, F. L. (1958). The Living City. New York, USA: Horizon Press.
- Wright, F. L. (2008). Modern architecture: Being the Kahn Lectures for 1930. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
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