BK Olson, Travel Blogger

Category: Frank Lloyd Wright

  • Taliesin

    Taliesin

    Taliesin Wisconsin

    Click on the first photo in each group and scroll to see the square photos at full size.

    In 1932 the Taliesin Fellowship was founded as a community that provided architectural training with a “learn by doing” approach. The community survives today as the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture whose members, both faculty and apprentices, are still known as the Taliesin Fellowship and reside at Taliesin during the summer months.

    Taliesin Wisconsin

    Frank Lloyd Wright finished his schooling at UW-Madison and started his architectural career in Chicago, but he returned to the Wisconsin valley that his Welsh ancestors had settled – where he had spent many summers in his teens. There, in 1911, he began building Taliesin, which would be his principal residence and new studio for the remainder of his life. Like Taliesin West, it was a work in progress, as he and the Fellowship reworked it and kept adding on.

    It was truly a beautiful day when we visited Taliesin. There was a 70% chance that our tour would be rained out, but as you can see by the photos, not a drop. This was kinda where it all began for Frank Lloyd Wright. His home base. Again we had an excellent tour guide. She told us that the name Taliesin “shining brow” was chosen because the building wraps around the brow of the hill, but a Welsh poet named Taliesin may have also inspired the name, due to Wright’s love of his Welsh ancestry. We saw the interior and the gardens and truly enjoyed every minute of the two-hour tour. We may go back for the four-hour tour sometime in the future. I just can’t get enough!

    Did you know:

    • Of the 500+ buildings Wright designed through his life, one-third were built during the final decade of his life, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, meaning he would have been in his 80’s.
    • More than one-third of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places or are part of National Register Historic Districts.
    • Twenty-four of his buildings are National Historic Landmarks, the highest honor bestowed on historic properties by the federal government.
    • His Wisconsin home, Taliesin, became a National Historic Landmark in 1976. In 2008, Taliesin was one of 10 Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings that were submitted by the United States National Park Service as nominees for World Heritage Status.

    For more of Frank Lloyd Wright, visit his category in the menu above or click here.

    Happy trails,
    Barb

  • Taliesin West

    Taliesin West

    Located in the beautiful Sonoran desert in northeast Scottsdale, we experienced Frank Lloyd Wright’s brilliant ability to integrate indoor and outdoor spaces.

    Click on the first photo in each group and scroll to see the square photos at full size.
    To start at the beginning of this series, visit The Trip that Started it All 2014

    Wright’s Winter Retreat

    In 1937, at the age of 70, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship began building Taliesin West as a winter home, studio, and architectural campus. It remained in a constant state of change as Wright experimented and redesigned it over the years.

    Frank Lloyd Wright has become of particular interest to me lately. Whether it’s the craftsman style or his love of blending so beautifully with nature, we find ourselves in search of his buildings whenever we travel. Following is an excerpt from the Foundation’s website that best describes his philosophy. I think it’s just wonderful.

    “To Wright, architecture was not just about buildings, it was about nourishing the lives of those sheltered within them. What were needed were environments to inspire and offer repose to the inhabitants. He called his architecture “organic” and described it as that “great living creative spirit which from generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man and his circumstances as they both change.”

    “Wright himself grew up close to the land and in touch with its creative processes and it gave him constant inspiration for his architecture. He believed architecture must stand as a unified whole, grow from and be a blessing to the landscape, all parts relating and contributing to the final unity, whether furnishings, plantings, or works of art.

    To materially realize such a result, he created environments of carefully composed plans and elevations based on a consistent geometric grammar, while skillfully implementing the integration of the building with the site through the compatibility of materials, form, and method of construction. Through simplification of form, line, and color, and through the “rhythmic play of parts, the poise and balance, the respect the forms pay to the materials, and the repose these qualities attain to,” Wright created plastic, fluent, and coherent spaces that complement the changing physical and spiritual lives of the people who live in them.”     – READ MORE

    We Can’t get Enough of Frank

    Because of our excellent tour guide and of course this beautiful campus, this was a wonderful tour. She was so dedicated to the foundation and to portraying Wright as the brilliant and dedicated teacher of architecture that he was. She really added to the experience by telling stories and bringing out the little nuances that made him as human as we are. It must have been a great honor to learn from him. We left this place and immediately made plans to see the “original” Taliesin, in Spring Green, WI. So close to home, but we had never been there.

    Next up: Taliesin

    Happy trails,
    Barb