The ‘Great Society’, the Academy and Architectural Education in the United States. Leonardo Ricci’s Miami-Dade Model Cities Program ‘academic exercise’ (1968-1970) = La “Great Society”, l’Accademia e la formazione architettonica negli Stati Uniti. L’ ‘esercizio accademico’ del Miami-Dade-Model City Program di Leonardo Ricci (1968-1970)

This article investigates the Miami-Dade Model City Programme designed by Leonardo Ricci, Riccardo Morandi and a group of students at the University of Florida (1968-1970) as part of the history of the Model Cities political Program. Namely, it looks at how the project intertwined between the Model Cities Staff and the Citizens’ Task Forces’ requests via focusing on how the involvement of scholars of different disciplines influenced the policies on the neighborhood and the work on the masterplans. This includes the study of those scholars, why they were called upon, and to what extent they affected the programme’s complex progression. A historic overview on the program precedes a focus on the Task Forces’ academic work in Johnson’s ‘Great Society’, useful to analyze the Miami-Dade case study. The conclusion suggests a critical view on the project as ‘academic exercise’ and example for other Model Cities in its positive and negative aspects.