Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect with a democratic vision. By integrating the city into the countryside, Wright was envisioning a decentralized city that stressed agrarian living and familial connectivity. Many of Wright's ideals and visions are rooted in his life experiences. Specifically, his childhood experiences in the countryside made Wright highly critical of the city, which ignited his vision of the city rooted in Jeffersonian values. Wright's early work reflects his democratic ideals, especially Oak Park, as an importance was placed on family. His ideas about democracy grew into the vision of Broadacre City, which emphasized the importance influence that technology would have on his envisioned democracy. It was through this vision that Wright sought to build for citizens of the United States. His vision of the city was placed in the countryside, where people could live free from centralization. Here nature and city would coalesce into one entity. Within this entity, the structural forms would be built to merge into and become one with the natural landscape.

     The architectural designs of Frank Lloyd Wright are reflective of his life in such a strong way that the two cannot be separated. Inclusive in this is the high degree of control that Wright had in his design, an amount of control so strong that the idea of master was inherent in his architecture. In this sense, Wright's idea of democracy was built under the control of the architect. Nevertheless, Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural designs and visions of the agrarian, democratic city define both who he was as an architect and as an individual.

Early Life in the Country:

     Frank Lloyd Wright's childhood experiences would later have a significant impact his architectural and city design. As a young boy, Wright was fond of his experiences on the family farm in Wisconsin. After spending a part of his childhood moving from place to place, the Wright family finally settled at his maternal family farm in Wisconsin. Although the agrarian family customs and life had an effect on Wright's democratic philosophy, the greatest impact on his work came from the Froebel blocks his mother had purchased for this future architect. These blocks of various geometrical shapes and sizes allowed young Frank to aesthetically manipulate the blocks to create "varied symmetrical arrangements" and a "variety of composite forms" (Hertz, 8). His early childhood travels, life on the farm, and manipulations of the Froebel blocks would all influence the physical and the ideological aspects of Wright's designs.

Into His Own in Chicago:

     At the turn of the twentieth century Frank Lloyd Wright was living in the Chicago suburb, Oak Park, designing homes and working as an apprentice to Louis Sullivan. Wright learned much from Sullivan in the aspects of design and architectural philosophy. According to Fishman, Sullivan created an "Architecture for Democracy," where democracy was defined as "freedom for individual development and expression" (104-5). Sullivan also attached great importance on the architect that is similar to Wright's view of the architect. For Sullivan, the "well-being of the republic depended upon the architect" to create forms reflective of and contributive to the "democratic idea" (105). By adopting the credo of democratic form, Wright took to designing homes in the Chicago suburb, that reflected his growing democratic and symmetric designs, also influenced by Wright's growing interest in Japanese culture and design.

     While in Chicago, Wright began to come into his own as an architect and as a social philosopher. His homes at Oak Park were developed simply to reflect "democratic individuality" and the family, especially evident in Wright's use of open spaces that centered around the hearth (Fishman, 111). Implicit in Wright's designs at Oak Park was his developing views on society, which were highly influenced by the socio-political stances of the Progressive Party. According to Rosenbaum, the Progressives gave great weight to the individual and to the developing technologies (particularly the machine and the automobile) used by corporate enterprises. As Rosenbaum points out, Wright was influenced by the "Progressive causes of reform, modernization, better economic balance between cities and rural areas, equality between the sexes, and restraint of the excesses of the ruling class and advancement of opportunities for the less fortunate" (28).

     These social beliefs and views on modernization not only had an impact on Wright's early work, but also impacted his later development of Broadacre City. While Wright was on the one hand accepting of modernization (especially his overwhelming acceptance of the automobile), he was on the other hand critical of the impact that technology had on the city. Hertz notes that Wright warns in his commentary, "The Art and Craft of Machines," that the "machine as a creation of man, must be seen as an organic entity, a product of nature" (27). Wright saw the danger of the city not only becoming a "monster befouled and poisoned by pollution and smoke" but also as an entity stifled by the powerful impact of centralization (27).

     Wright's early criticisms of the city are evident in his later critique of the modern city. In Wright's The Living City, he points to the problems inherent in the mechanization and the centralization of the city and attempts to develop solutions that focus on Jeffersonian democratic beliefs. One problem he sees with the modern city is that centralization has created a social structure based on the notion of rent, where property and work are given monetary values that serve to benefit the select few. From this scenario grows a society based on a system of production that controls consumption, which, consequently, creates a society that is functionally inorganic. Another problem Wright has with the modern, centralized city is the overabundance of skyscrapers in the overcrowded city. These skyscrapers not only bring about the exploitation of the citizens (especially by those who control the production and the rent within the city), they also bring about a concentration of traffic within the city. As a higher concentration of citizens inhabits the city, the traffic problem causes the city to become overwhelmed by pollution (30-60). Therefore, over the course of his career Wright's criticisms of the modern city remained an ever-present factor in his work.

Broadacre City: A Response to the Modern City:

     Frank Lloyd Wright had a response to the modern city, which maintained that the city and the countryside were to be made into one Broadacre City. This model of Wright's became his lasting achievement and was produced by a vision that sought for a decentralized, agrarian, democratic place.

     Frank Lloyd Wright's utopian model came about in response to the social and economic misfortunes of the Great Depression. As Fishman points out, the 1929 stock market crash strengthened Wright's belief that "the nation needed a change in its physical and economic organization" (122). The change that Wright suggested was to be brought through a model that decentralized the physical and the social power of the modern city, with the inclusive fusion of Jeffersonian democratic ideals with technology. As a result, what came about was Wright's development of a city model that was "designed to give space, air, and beauty to every individual in the community" so as to bring about the "possibility of greater individual development for everyone in our democratic society" (Zygas, 45).

     The imagery of Broadacre City was developed through a philosophical convergence of the organic and the inorganic. From the structure of the homes to Wright's notion of work, there was an inherent attempt to fuse the ideas of pre-modern agrarian life with the ideas of modern industrial life. Wright's merging of town and country (similar to Howard's merging of the two) is an attempt to unite the polarized aspects of the city and the country. As Fishman explains, Wright's Broadacre vision was one that sought to have "no more distinction(s) between urban and rural lifestyles" as technology served as a mechanism for the promotion of democratic beliefs and citizen connectivity that serves to unite the rural landscape into a viable city.

     The architecture used to create a city within the valley, as compared to the Italian medieval city upon the hill, represents the simple or organic use of structure. Brought from his childhood experiences in the countryside, Wright explains that "organic architecture" shapes democratic life through its simplicity. Wright notes that organic architecture connects the citizen to her land in such a way that roots herself in freedom from the constraining notion of the centralized city. Contrary to the city upon the hill, Wright envisions a city without walls, a city without limits, stretching across an infinite plane. Organic architecture places the individual into this plane where "democracy triumphs and builds the great new city" and where no person will live as a "servile or savage animal; holing in or trapped in some cubicle on an upended extension of some narrow street" (96). Therefore, Wright's use of organic architecture was one that sought to create a city where the citizen is free in both mind and body.

     Implicit in Wright's vision of the city is the necessary connection to nature. In many of his works, structures are built into the natural landscape. Two prominent examples of Wright's integration of form with nature are his Fallingwater project and his Taliesin West project. Developing a city that is connected to nature, with an integration of modern technology, is founded in the influences that Wright derived from the progressivist Muscle Shoals experiment. The experiment centered on the harnessing of nature, specifically water, to create an industrialized, prosperous city. The project was driven by Henry Ford's vision of the factory in the garden, where energy would be generated by the efficient use of hydroelectricity and where factory workers would devote their leisure time to the cultivation of the land. The Muscle Shoals experiment never fully materialized, but the ideas generated from the experiment left an indelible impact on Wright's vision of the city and the structures within the city (Rosenbaum, 51-62).

     Broadacre City is seen as Frank Lloyd Wright's enduring legacy. The creation of Broadacre City represents the accumulated knowledge and beliefs that Wright envisioned for the design of a democratic city. Although Wright's vision of the Broadacre City was in a constant state of change and expansion, there were common elements that brought his decentralized, democratic vision to life. One important feature of Broadacre City was the Usonian home situated on one acre of land housing each single family. The simple nature of these homes, dedicated by Wright to the citizens of the United States, represented a reverence to organic life centering around individuality and family life. The homes gave the individual a freedom from others, especially since the 761 dwellings in Broadacre City were spatially placed in the model's four square miles. This distanciation of homes in the model city gave it a very low population density. But, the distance between the citizens was bridged by modern technology, namely, the growth of a system of telecommunications (i.e. the telephone) and the prevalence of the automobile. As telephone lines connected people communicatively, the highway (via the automobile) connected people spatially (Zygas, 21-9).

     Another important feature of Broadacre City is Wright's zoning of different institutions in conjunction with "activity and function" (Zygas, 22). For example, the "Community Center" comprised Broadacre City's entertainment facilities ranging from art to athletics. Also of importance was the social gathering space that consisted of a public arena, a public announcement structure, a religious building, and various other institutions that brought the people of city together to share common experiences. Absent from these social institutions was a centralized governmental institution; Wright placed the lone administrative building at a respectable distance from the housing facilities and other institutions of private and public life (Zygas, 22-7).

     The institutions that were of utmost importance to Frank Lloyd Wright were the institutions of education. Fishman points out that Wright placed such a high emphasis on education so that individuals could master the modern technologies as well as gain an "understanding of the wisdom of the past" (137). But, Wright was critical of the growing specialization found in the institutions of learning. He was wary of the specialization of knowledge because it contributed to the expansion of corporate capitalist interests. Wright referred to his ideal school as a "culture center" that placed an emphasis on nature and individualism. In his view, the children at the ideal school would be taught to be "Individualists capable of intelligent cooperation with Principle, growing up not mistaking personality for individuality or license for freedom" (189).

     To uphold the notions of individuality in production, design centers played an important role in the creation of products in such a way that preserved the independence of the citizens. Wright points out that these institutions would "do much to reclaim and vitalize all American society" (191). This is so because the design centers focus on the preservation of individuality in the production of goods. Centered in this philosophy, organic architecture will serve as the basis for weaving the democratic fabric throughout the city.

Conclusion:

     The architectural design and the philosophy of Frank Lloyd Wright represent his interpretations of an ideal democratic society. In his early childhood, Wright spent much time on the family farm manipulating Froebel blocks. From these early affinities, Wright applied his love of nature and geometric shapes to his architecture. In Chicago, Wright applied his shapes to the homes that he designed. Wright's design and use of symmetry to maximize the family gathering space and to bring about a greater connection to nature are evident in many contemporary homes. While in Chicago, Wright was influenced by the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century. His philosophical view was highly critical of the corporate capitalistic cities, as he advanced a view that centered on individual freedom, democracy, and nature.

     Broadacre City was a response to the emerging congestive cities. Alofsin points out that "Broadacre city allowed for the reemergence of the citizen and his transformation from citizen to the denizen of the landscape" (14). Accordingly, Wright's use of organic architecture and his vision of Broadacre City meshed the city into the countryside in such a way to preserve nature, individualism, and democracy.

Alofsin, Anthony. "Broadacre City: The Reception of a Modernist Vision, 1932-1988." Center: A Journal of Architecture in America. 5 (1989): 14.

Fishman, Robert. Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and LeCorbusier. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989. 122-42.

Hertz, David Michael. Frank Lloyd Wright: In Word and Form. New York: G.K. Hall and Co. 1995.

Rosenbaum, Alvin. Usonia: Frank Lloyd Wright's Design for America. Washington D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1993. 25-62.

Wright, Frank Lloyd. The Living City. New York: Horizon Press, 1958. 31-190.

Zygas, K. Paul, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Phoenix Papers. [Volume 1: Broadacre City], Tempe: Arizona State University Press, 1995. 17-31.