Land of the Free: Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City and The Grapes of Wrath

By Maria Schroeder

A Sunday or two ago, I took a visit to the Museum of Modern Art. It was actually my first time ever visiting the MoMA, and I saw some really fascinating art. There was one exhibit on the fifth floor that caught my eye. It was a large 3-D model of what looked like the design plan for a town. It was expansive, though the terrain was quite flat, and everything in the town was congregated tightly together. What I was looking at was the work of the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This model was called Broadacre City, and it served as a democratic city which takes advantage of modern day technology to work to decentralize the type of cities we see today, with the concentrations of power and privilege that come with it. This remarkable twelve foot by twelve foot model demonstrates how the “typical” countryside might be settled by 1,400 families. Though it was never actually built in real life, the model is a grand display of farms, homesteads, and factories all connected by roads and in close proximity to set parks and community facilities. Broadacre City works to combat the suburban sprawl that we continue to see today. The surfacing themes of land, the American Dream, and technological advancement seen in this model reminded me of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

 



The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family, an Okie migrant family living during the time of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in America, specifically in Oklahoma. One theme that circulates throughout the novel is one of anti-capitalism. Steinbeck throughout the novel gives vivid descriptions into the life of the Joad family struggling with the ugly side of capitalism, one where people are hungry and living in poor conditions; struggling to make ends meet. The centralized power of the bank is made out to be the villain in the story, and images of tractors and others of technological advancement are sources of pain and destruction for the Joad family, since they rid them of the opportunity to fully live the American dream.



Broadacre City actually toured around the United States for several years during the height of the Great Depression, when the Grapes of Wrath is set. Both works tackle the concepts of capitalism and industrialization in America, with the Grapes of Wrath taking a more critical approach and Broadacre City working as a possible solution. They also pinpoint land and labor to be large aspects of the American identity, land specifically being a gateway to true freedom and self-determination in America.

Steinbeck shows the dark side of labor and production under capitalism, exemplified through the suffering and adversity that the Joad's face throughout the novel along with the other migrant workers around them. On the other hand, Wright combats this with putting power in the hands of the people, pushing against centralizing power in the hands of monopolies and big corporations. In Wright’s Broadacre City, every family must have at least one acre, a telephone, a car, a radio, and access to clean energy. Technology was to be applied at the local level, in support of the productivity of the individual for the collective good. This vision for urban renewal proposed by Wright pushes back on the typical centralization of technology and power and we continue to see today in our urban environments, ensuring that the welfare of one individual or community isn't prioritized over the other. By looking at both the Grapes of Wrath and Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City, we can both critique and envision a world at the height of technological advancement and capital.