Alice Constance Austin

Llano del Rio

Llano del Rio is Alice Constance Austin’s most recognized project. She was hired in the early 1910s by Job Harriman, a socialist with the intentions to build a cooperative community in Palmdale, California. It was a circular city plan which included administrative buildings, restaurants, churches, schools, markets, etc. The houses had a modern feminist design and included plans for a kitchenless house, communal daycare areas, built-in furniture and heated tile floors; which would serve in cutting down the amount of domestic work done by women. Austin’s feminist concepts greatly complemented the socialist ideas of Harriman because both approaches questioned the patriarchal history of social status. In the private sphere, she designed for comfort, efficiency, functionality, and collective domestic housework, which would reduce domestic labor in the home.