Taliesin West

A detailed Summary of Taliesin West

Do you have a living room in your house? A carport? Does your house have an "open" floor plan? If so, then the way you live is being directly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright's innovations in residential architecture (Copplestone 1).

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867 in southwestern Wisconsin of talented and dynamic parents; his father a preacher and musician, his mother a teacher. From his father, Wright learned how the order and structure of music had influenced his perception of architectural form. From his mother, he acquired a strong respect for learning (Copplestone 8).

Wright spent his boyhood summers on the farms of his Welsh uncles where he learned to appreciate the values of nature and disciplined hard work. He left his formal schooling at the University of Wisconsin to go to Chicago and in 1887 became an apprentice to the greatest American architect of that time, Louis Sullivan (Nash 4).

In 1893 Wright opened his own practice in Oak Park, Illinois. A distinctive new architecture, which he called "Organic", emerged and by 1910 his accomplishments had gained worldwide recognition. There are six chief points to organic architecture. Some of the points include the spiritual integr

desert." He and his apprentices gathered rocks from the desert floor and sand from the washes to build this great desert masterpiece (Smith 23).

The most interesting information that I learned was about what Taliesin means. Taliesin was the name of a Welsh Poet, a druid-bard who sang to Wales the glories of fine art. Literally, the Welsh word means "shining brow" the nationality of Wright's ancestors. Taliesin in Wisconsin sits on the "brow" of a hill overlooking the valley below, while Taliesin West is located on a broad mesa (Wright 8).

Wright first visited Arizona in 1927 when he was asked to consult on designs for the Arizona Biltmore. In the years following that visit, Wright and some of his apprentices spent time at temporary sites in Arizona including a desert camp they constructed near Chandler in 1929, which Wright named "Ocatilla." (Boulton 6)

When I asked why Wright chose that exact location in Scottsdale for Taliesin West, Beverly Hart, the public access manager told me that "selecting a good site was one of Wright's priorities for architecture." She told me that "when he set out to design and build the institution, his goal was to integrate the structures with the "Nature" of the desert, its soul, and its physical characteristics." (Hart 3)

Mrs. Hart told me that Taliesin West has been remodeled since Frank Lloyd Wright built it in 1940. "A major alteration was the addition of a larger playhouse, called the Cabaret-Theater, built in the winters of 1950 and 1951," she stated. The new theater was the location of the weekend's relaxation. Dinners were held with music and a movie following. Wright initially planned Taliesin West as a winter "camp" for the Fellowship; building it of wood, desert masonry, and canvas. The addition of air conditioning made longer stays possible, and Taliesin West quickly became an autumn, winter, and spring residence. The canvas roofs were rearranged, rebuilt, and eventually replaced with various synthetic materials that were more durable

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Approximate Word count = 1353
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English