Taliesin West

Hello,

A few weeks back, I visited my brother in Arizona. a highlight of my trip was a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter house called Taliesin West, which is essentially a complex that has everything from a movie theater, art studio, and cafeteria. It served as a winter home for him and the members of his architecture apprenticeship. Frank Lloyd Wright is known as the greatest architect. He lived from 1867-1959. What made him unique is that he designed every last detail in all of his houses. Usually architects do not design furniture and colors of each and every corner of the houses they work on.

A very notable feature of Taliesin West is that it blends in with the mountain it’s on. Its main foundations are made of rock taken from the mountain and concrete. Majority of the buildings of Taliesin West are one story high (along with almost every other house in the Phoenix area). Its colors are a brownish red, brown and gray. There are a few pools and fountains scattered throughout the complex. Wright used many geometric shapes and many different colors in his designs.

Wright did not like to waste space. Doorways and hallways in his house are very short and then open up to normal sized rooms. This made the room one is entering seem a lot larger. He left corners unwalled because he felt it restrained him. Most of the rooms in the house were originally left 1/4 unwalled. Eventually he agreed to put glass windows.

Pages and pages can be written about Taliesin West but it will never compare to seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s skills in person.