Dynamic Usonia: The Evolution of Wrightian Organic Principles for Community Sustainability

Abstract

Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision of an organically formed, organized, and functioning agrarian community, as it evolved in the early to mid-twentieth century, is outlined by principles intended to be ever-changing. In considering change, I propose it is essential to evolve these principles to corollate with contemporary necessities, as they are not stagnant ideas, but ones intended to be reactionary to time and place. Wright’s principles of plasticity, continuity, simplicity, horizontality, and harmony support the organic goals of reintegration and communal individuality. This organic community was first proposed as Broadacre City and evolved into the farther-reaching Usonia through the reiterations of the text accompanying Wright’s organic community plan, reinforcing the action of decentralization and values of traditional agrarianism. Though Broadacre City has been studied endlessly in architecture and planning circles, since its conception, an understanding of the dynamic principles Wright infuses into the form, function, organization, governing systems, and land use have yet to be evolved holistically, as the organic theory requires, to apply to self- and communally-reliant, sustainable, and reactive communities in the twenty-first century. By focusing on the aspects of these principles that make a community and its population both communally and self-reliant and sustainable, we may better understand how Usonia may still be the organic community of the future.