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Step 1
Wright spent the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries in the spotlight. After his mentor Louis Sullivan fired him he went into practice for himself. He designed some of the most revolutionary and innovative buildings that were built in the United States in that period. He made and spent a ton of money. He married and raised six children. And he seduced his clients' wives.
His open affair with Mamah Borthwick Cheney landed him on the front pages, so he left his wife and kids and took his mistress to Europe, where he supervised the publication of lavish books of his designs, books which were to influence a generation of European architects. He returned to America in 1911 and built a country retreat in the hills of Wisconsin. He named the house "Taliesin," Welsh for "shining brow," a reference not only to the house's site but to a poet and minstrel of that name.
But Taliesin was not to prove a refuge. One afternoon one of Wright's servants went berserk and killed Mamah, her children and several guests and set the house afire. After this tragedy Wright met and married the unstable Miriam Noel and Taliesin II caught fire due to faulty wiring. Wright left Noel, took up with Olgivanna Hinzenberg, fathered a child with her, Miriam had him arrested for violating the Mann Act and Taliesin III was seized by creditors. -
Step 2
After divorcing Miriam and marrying Olgivanna he managed to convince his wealthy friends and former clients to buy shares based on his future earnings. The fact that he pulled this off at the worst point in the Great Depression, when he was over sixty years of age, says something about his powers of persuasion. He also formed the Taliesin Fellowship, whereby young people from all over the world would pay Wright to live at Taliesin, drive tractors, bale hay, peel potatoes, build and paint and study architecture.
The Fellowship worked out so well that Wright built a winter home, Taliesin West, in Arizona. He and Olgivanna died there, in 1959 and 1985, respectively. Both homes are open for tours, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture still operates here. -
Step 3
The Taliesin estate includes buildings associated with various periods of Wright's life and career. Hillside, for instance, started out as a progressive boarding school run by Wright's aunts. The building was one of Wright's first projects. Eventually the school went under and Wright bought the building and remodeled it for his apprentices. It now houses the main drafting room for the school, apprentice dormitories, the Fellowship Dining Hall and a theater where the apprentices used to put on plays, dances and other productions. Nearby is the "Romeo and Juliet Windmill Tower," which Wright also built for his aunts. The tower got its name because its two main vertical structural elements seem locked in an embrace.
Near Hillside is Unity Chapel and the cemetery of the Lloyd Jones family. Mamah Cheney is buried here and Wright was for awhile, though Olgivanna eventually had him exhumed, cremated and brought to Arizona to join her. This did not go over well with Wright's descendants.
Unity Chapel was designed by early Wright employer J.L. Silsbee and Wright was said to have drawn the actual blueprints and supervised the construction. In later years Wright prepared a design for a new Unity Chapel, but it's never been built. -
Step 4
Between Hillside and the main house is Tan-y-Deri, the former home of Wright's sister Jane, and the buildings of Midway Farm. It is said that one of Olgivanna's favorite daily tasks was selecting the classical music to be piped in over loudspeakers for the entertainment of the apprentices working out in the fields at Midway.
Elsewhere in the valley is the water garden, a lake which was sometimes used in Fellowship theatricals and the "Welsh hills" of Bryn Mawr, Bryn Canol and Bryn Bach. -
Step 5
The main house, the structure most commonly referred to as Taliesin, is roughly L-shaped and covers about 21,000 square feet. As mentioned, Taliesin has been built three times, but Wright tinkered with and rearranged the house off and on his entire life. The result is a masterpiece of space, volume, light, shadow, color and even scent. Wright always lived beyond his means, and his homes are filled with beautiful things, especially Asian artworks. Indeed on several occasions he was forced to sell some of his collection to keep bill collectors at bay.
Wright's works are such that photos do not do them justice—nothing beats the experience of actually being inside his buildings. That is especially true of Taliesin. But even if you look at a floor plan of Taliesin it's hard to get a feel for the place—it seems like a labyrinth.
The main thing to keep in mind is Wright designed a house to fit the pre-existing landscape rather than have the landscape changed to suit the house. Taliesin is built around the brow of a hill, rather than on top of it. Its various sections are arranged around courtyards and to exploit specific views. It is mostly a one-story house, but it does take on extra levels as it climbs or descends the hill. -
Step 6
The main house, the structure most commonly referred to as Taliesin, is roughly L-shaped and covers about 21,000 square feet. As mentioned, Taliesin has been built three times, but Wright tinkered with and rearranged the house off and on his entire life. The result is a masterpiece of space, volume, light, shadow, color and even scent. Wright always lived beyond his means, and his homes are filled with beautiful things, especially Asian artworks. Indeed on several occasions he was forced to sell some of his collection to keep bill collectors at bay.
Wright's works are such that photos do not do them justice—nothing beats the experience of actually being inside his buildings. That is especially true of Taliesin. But even if you look at a floor plan of Taliesin it's hard to get a feel for the place—it seems like a labyrinth.
The main thing to keep in mind is Wright designed a house to fit the pre-existing landscape rather than have the landscape changed to suit the house. Taliesin is built around the brow of a hill, rather than on top of it. Its various sections are arranged around courtyards and to exploit specific views. It is mostly a one-story house, but it does take on extra levels as it climbs or descends the hill.
The entrance to the house is at the end of a northwest/southeast axis of courtyards or through a shady porch at the top of several flights of limestone steps that rise from a driveway. Either way, the front door leads through a lobby, down a hallway and into the living room, one of Wright's most celebrated spaces.
The ceiling varies in height, depending on whether the area it covers is supposed to be intimate or public. The fireplace area is almost cave-like, with recessed lighting, built-in furniture and a massive piece of limestone over the hearth. The dining area is dominated by a Japanese painted screen, set against a wall of rough limestone blocks. A nearby alcove leads outside to a long balcony that is cantelvered over the valley and was put in specifically for bird-watching.
Going back down the hallway the visitor passes a kitchen and the guest room. The latter has a narrow clerestory window which allows a shaft of sunlight to work its way across the chimney breast. Moving along the visitor passes through the loggia and the garden room, living areas which look east and west, respectively. The garden room had been the porte-cochere in Taliesin I; now the room includes a huge blue Chinese carpet, a Japanese screen, and
