Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought

5. Broadacre City and the 1930s

130 5 Broa­ da­ cre City and the 1930s in 1932, with the pub­ li­ ca­ tion of An Auto­ biog­ ra­ phy and the found­ ing of the Ta­ lie­ sin Fel­ low­ ship, the na­ ture of Frank Lloyd ­ Wright’s writ­ ing ­ changes. A lack of com­ mis­ sions in the sec­ ond half of the 1920s had ­ forced him to write es­ says and de­ liver lec­ tures for a liv­ ing, and the onset of the Great De­ pres­ sion as­ sured lit­ tle archi­ tec­ tu­ ral work would be com­ ing along for any­ one, much less for an old man whose rep­ u­ ta­ tion and per­ sonal con­ duct were mat­ ters of con­ tro­ versy. There was no al­ ter­ na­ tive but to write him­ self back into ex­ is­ tence, which is pre­ cisely what An Auto­ biog­ ra­ phy and the pros­ pec­ tus for the Ta­ lie­ sin Fel­ low­ ship ac­ com­ plished. Broa­ da­ cre City and the writ­ ings that de­ scribe it are ex­ am­ ples of how the ­ Fellowship’s sup­ port put him on a new path, not just as a ­ builder but as a ­ thinker. In Com­ mu­ nities of Frank Lloyd ­ Wright (2009) Myron A. Marty warns that Broa­ da­ cre City is not a uto­ pian or­ gan­ iza­ tion, for it was never or­ ga­ nized at all—ex­ cept in ­ Wright’s head. It is an idea, Marty­ argues, and asks that it be con­ sid­ ered that way, as ad­ vance plan­ ning for a sub­ ur­ bia ­ Wright saw com­ ing as early as the 1920s, when his ex­ ten­ sive auto­ mo­ bile ­ travel ­ across the ­ United ­ States re­ vealed not just the vast­ spaces avail­ able but the prac­ ti­ cal means of shrink­ ing those dis­ tances for a bet­ ter style of human use. But it was also an idea that ­ needed a model, a phys­ i­ cal ren­ der­ ing of what could be­ come re­ al­ ity. In the days be­ fore com­ pu­ ter­ ized mod­ el­ ing, con­ struct­ ing a ­ wall-sized lay­ out of a ­ foursquare -mile pro­ ject at a scale of ­ seventy-five feet to the inch was more than a ­ labor-intensive pro­ ject; it was an under­ tak­ ing of gar­ gan­ tuan pro­ por­ tions, es­ pe­ cially when mod­ els of every build­ ing (com­ pris­ ing Broadacre City and the 1930s 131 many of ­ Wright’s built struc­ tures and pro­ jects to date) were added. Only the hun­ dreds of will­ ing fin­ gers avail­ able in the Fel­ low­ ship could do it. And only a $1,000 check ex­ tracted from the ­ wealthy ­ father of ap­ pren­ tice Edgar J. Kauf­ mann, Jr., could begin to fi­ nance it. Then there was the mat­ ter of ex­ hi­ bi­ tion. Ap­ pren­ tices were ­ charged with trans­ port­ ing it to New York ­ City’s Rocke­ feller Cen­ ter for its first show­ ing in 1935, and from there to gal­ ler­ ies in such di­ verse lo­ ca­ tions as Phil­ a­ del­ phia; Wash­ ing­ ton, D. C.; and Mad­ i­ son, Wis­ con­ sin. ­ Wright con­ tin­ ued to sup­ port the idea for the rest of his life, show­ ing the model ­ abroad in the 1950s and pub­ lish­ ing his last book on the topic just a year be­ fore his death, all of which could only hap­ pen with the sup­ port of his many ap­ pren­ tices. Not only did it form a part of their ed­ u­ ca­ tion, but it pro­ vided an intro­ duc­ tion to and ex­ pe­ ri­ ence with major fig­ ures in the art world and govern­ ment. They could work on it out­ side, dur­ ing sum­ mers in Wis­ con­ sin and win­ ters in Ar­ i­ zona, where ­ Wright ar­ ranged tem­ po­ rary quar­ ters while scout­ ing lo­ ca­ tions for Ta­ lie­ sin West. Just as Broa­ da­ cre City could not exist with­ out the Ta­ lie­ sin Fel­ low­ ship, so too did Frank Lloyd ­ Wright’s idea for the fu­ ture pro­ vide a pro­ ject for the Fel­ low­ ship. Be­ fore Fall­ ing­ wa­ ter, there was pre­ cious lit­ tle for the Fel­ low­ ship to do...