广 is a self-radical pictograph picturing a sloping roof leaning against a wall - a covered lean-to or open shed. As a freestanding character it is read guǎng with the modern meaning ‘wide, broad, extensive’, a heavily simplified form of traditional
廣. The 1956 simplification dropped the
黃 phonetic underneath, leaving only the shelter radical to stand for the whole word. Classically also read yǎn as Kangxi radical 53. As a radical it heads the architecture-and-shelter family:
库,
店,
庙,
床,
庭.
