Sunday, October 12, 2008

Taliesin West

Frank Lloyd Wright's Desert Masterpiece in Scottsdale was amazing. Mom and I went on Saturday and paid (top dollar) for the 90 minute tour through the famous home. Wright purchased 100 acres on a barren Arizona hillside and, along with the 23 students of his newly founded Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, began to build Taliesin West (Welsh word for shining brow). Taliesin was built in Wisconsin, where his mother lived.

I don't even know how to describe the architecture. If you're not familiar with Wright's style, it is called organic architecture. It is meant to be built in to its environment with a kind of natural harmony, so that it blends in and uses its surroundings, rather than standing out like an eye-sore. His most famous project, Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, is now a priority on my travel list.

The pictures I took don't do this place justice. But I'll include a few anyhow. I can only hope you appreciate it from my photos as much as we did.





This was an archer in his sculpture garden (cast by one of his students who still lives there I believe) that for some reason really caught my eye.





Enjoy. I'm going to start researching organic architecture and make it a side hobby of mine I think. The book I looked through in the gift shop about it was mesmerizing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Have you noticed that all the ceiling heights in FLW's houses are extrordinarily low? Like, for serious.... That dude was 5'6. And never thought it was necessary to make ceilings higher than 7', sometimes lower.


Fallingwater is a prime example for this.