building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

Careful observation of the plan of the city in 1800 [Figure 52] clearly shows how the
checkerboard system had been integrated with the six original neighbourhood
pavilions, cancelling forever the image of a frontier town and the savage landscape,
in which the town had lain just a few years before [Figure 53].
If we pause for a moment on a single pavilion governed by the new grid, we see
how a public space was envisaged in the centre and how the selling of lands was
subordinated to the definition of a road grid that established the geometrical order
of the structures. By adding new pavilions the sides, the roads that were once
peripheral automatically became commercial streets, whereas homes usually
fronted the central public spaces.
Although the scheme applied to the city of Savannah did not have any particular
influence on American town planning, it connected directly to the basic grid logic
behind the structure of Broadacre City (1935) [Figure 49‐50]. Wright’s project
adopted the grid not merely for its geometrical layout, but also to return to the
provisions established by the Land Ordinance of 1784, which were later
substantially confirmed in the subdivision of land following the Louisiana Purchase.
SIZE of Land Survey Dimensions in mile miles 2 acres m 2 km 2
Township 6 by 6 36 23040 93.0
Section 1 by 1 1 640 2.6
Half‐section 1 by ½ ½ 320 1.3
Quarter‐section ½ by ½ ¼ 160 647497
Half of quarter‐section ½ by ¼
1⁄8
80 323749
Quarter of quarter‐section ¼ by ¼
1⁄16
40 161874
Broadacre City 4 by 4 16 2560 10.4
Broadacre‐section 1 by 1 1 640 2.6
Broadacre stretches for 4 square miles and the module which subtends the town
grid consists of the Jefferson‐type section of one mile by one mile, so much so that
in the project the very term section was used by Wright to identify the four quarters
of the city. Each section identifies the 4 areas, amounting to 160 acres each, for an
overall total of 640 acres for the entire area of the section [Figure 49]. The
individual acres were in turn identified by a rectangular module of 264 x 165 feet
(50 x 80 m), which for Wright represented the minimum land unit to associate with
a building.
50