By Juan C. Ayllon If you enjoy lushly-treed hills, valleys, and hidden architectural gems–and you don’t mind a drive–the Taliesin Wisconsin might just be the thing for you! A National Historic Landmark tucked away near Spring Green, Wisconsin, it’s roughly a 3 ½ hour ride from downtown Chicago. The 800-acre estate features Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature 37,000-square-foot house, architectural school, assorted buildings, and farmland. The Taliesin Preservation that oversees it offers several tour packages, some including buildings by Wright from just about every decade of his career extending from the 1890s to the 1950s. At its heart is the Taliesin, itself. That’s Wright’s expansive personal quarters which offer the visitor an intimate look at his genius, creativity and vision, as well as his knack for repurposing common materials and objects towards sublime ends. Last summer, I felt compelled to learn more about this landmark, so I booked a two-hour walking tour that takes visitors through this masterpiece that Wright conceived, built, and rebuilt. A Wrighteous Background The acclaimed architect was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8, 1867 to a teacher, Anna Lloyd-Jones, 24, and William C. Wright, an itinerant 41-year-old musician and preacher. Wright attended University of Wisconsin, Madison from 1885-1886, where he studied engineering courses (UW Madison offered no architecture program at the time) and worked for the dean of engineering. (Britannica.com) From there, Wright moved to Chicago, where he worked for J.L. Silsbee in architectural detailing, then moved on to work for architects Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. He eventually became chief assistant to the acclaimed Sullivan until he left to form his own firm in 1893. (Ibid) His practice’s first house design, the W.H. Winslow House, was a hit that gained him notoriety, and he soon became one of the foremost proponents of the Prairie School movement, building roughly 50 homes from 1900-1910 that eschewed compartmentalization and featured low, wide roofs over bands of windows which turned corners and featured large, spacious rooms that flowed into one another. (Ibid) Keeping with this Prairie concept, in 1911 he built the Taliesin, emphasizing horizontal lines and long, low-slung roofs (Brewster, Mike. “Frank Lloyd Wright: America’s Architect.” Business Week Online, July 28, 2004). “Wright’s own connection to the valley surrounding Taliesin goes back to the mid-1800’s when his Welsh ancestors, the Lloyd Jones family, homesteaded the area near the Wisconsin River and the village of Spring Green,” reads the Taliesin Estate Booklet. “During summers spent on his uncle’s farm, Wright learned to appreciate the patterns and rhythms of nature he found in the branch of a tree, outcroppings of limestone, or the ever-shifting sandbars along the river. Wright’s basic concepts of “organic architecture” were born. (Taliesin; ‘I Feel My Roots in These Hillsides’. Taliesin Preservation, Inc., 2019.) “The building, as architecture, is born out of the heart of man, permanent consort to the ground, comrade to the trees, true reflection of man in the realm of his own spirit,” Frank Lloyd Wright had said. (Ibid) Its setting in southwest Wisconsin is magnificent; located on the brow of a large hill, the Taliesin overlooks that magnificent valley below that his mother’s ancestors had originally settled, and in keeping with their custom, he christened it with the Welsh name, “Taliesin” (pronounced Tally-ESS-in, it means “shining brow”). The name reflects Wright’s desire to build a home seated on the hillside, as a part, but not the crowning jewel atop a hill's setting (it sat, subjugated, below the hill’s peak), thus integrating it with–not dominating or mastering–the adjoining earth. (www.franklloydwright.org) The home employed locally-sourced materials to mirror the expansive Wisconsin landscape with a layout that Wright described as “low, wide, and snug.” Nearby farmers helped schlep stone from a nearby yellow limestone quarry that Wright mixed with sand from the river to create the Taliesin’s walls, and the plaster used in interior walls was mixed with sienna to render a shade of gold that mirrored the colors of the surrounding landscape. (Ibid) Taliesin was rebuilt twice following fires in 1914 and 1925–the first the result of arson by an angered and insane worker. Over roughly five decades, the property grew to house various buildings, an architectural school and farm. Then in 1937, Wright and his Taliesin Fellowship began wintering in his newly built Taliesin West campus in Arizona. And after he passed, the Taliesin estate that he established in 1940 took over, and it continues to serve as home for the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture from May through October. Its upkeep is tasked to its apprentices and the Taliesin Preservation, a non-profit that collaborates with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to preserve the estate and “conduct public educational and cultural programming that provides a greater understanding of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture and ideas.” (www.franklloydwright.org) A Three Hour Tour–Make that Two! Living in Chicago’s far northwest suburbs, the drive takes me roughly two and a half hours and, having jumped in my car at 7:45, I am nervous that I will be late for the 10:00 AM tee time. I am hauling as reasonably fast as I can but, of course, get hampered by the occasional slow driver and farmer’s tractor hauling a load for stretches down country roads. And, of course, there’s construction. Lyrics from Gilligan's Island Theme Song play in my head: The mate was a mighty sailing man, The skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day For a three hour tour, a three hour tour. (source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com) However, my stress turns to awe as I encounter lush, green towering hills and valleys the further north I drive (I am told later that long ago, the glaciers that flattened much of the midwest missed this area). Late to the Party I arrive at the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center too late to catch the shuttle with my designated tour group. However, the attendant says no worries, I’ll have the driver circle back. Looking around, I note that the visitor center, like many of Wright’s works, reminds me of the Chabudai, a short legged dining table found in traditional Japanese homes; with its extended overhanging eaves, the building has more length than height. It doesn’t tower over the earth, but hugs it; and with long bands of windows, it offers the visitor a breathtaking vista of the trees, hills, and nearby river with exposed sandbars. I am impressed with the signature Wright artifice and design in its information, gift shop and expansive cabaret dining spaces, which are open and splashed with natural lighting. Manning a walkie talkie, the attendant radios the driver, who pulls up five minutes later. Bumping along the rural road as the solo passenger, I am treated to a some Taliesin history; she points out that Wright employed some clever engineering to dam the north end of a nearby creek, and the necessary hydraulics to pump water to fountains, gardens, and his residence. The pond he created is drained now as the dam's being restored. In his autobiography, Wright had written the following about it: A great curved stone-walled seat enclosed the space just beneath them and stone pavement stepped down to a spring or fountain that welled up into a pool at the center of the circle. Each court had its fountain and the winding stream below had a great dam. A thick stone wall was thrown across it, to make a pond at the very foot of the hill, and raise the water in the Valley to within sight from Taliesin. The water below the falls thus made, was sent, by hydraulic ram, up to a big stone reservoir built into the higher hill, just behind and above the hilltop garden, to come down again into the fountains and go on down to the vegetable gardens on the slopes below the house. (Kieran, Murphy. “Wright Called It a Water Garden.” Taliesinpreservation.org, March 3, 2023). The August sun is hot as our tour bus approaches the Taliesin on its circuitous small road. I am told that it was originally a horse and buggy pathway that was expanded slightly to accommodate cars. With a cheery goodbye, I am pointed in the direction of our tour group. Some 18 in total, ranging in age from their teens to their 70s, they're seated under a tree by a magnificent garden outside the home, where a 20-something guide with wavy, long black hair, sunglasses, a long gray dress, and white gym shoes is addressing them. Standing nearby, perhaps four feet tall, a female stone figure holds court in the statue garden, hair crown braided, and arms missing like a classic, ancient Greek statue. Geometric patterns adorn her dress; with her gaze cast downward, eyes closed, she appears in contemplation or prayer. Our guide walks us to the garden and points out the use of common plumbing pipes repurposed for abstract architectural constructs and detailing. We walk the grounds along a walkway past a section of the architectural school, reconvene at a parking lot, peek through a window into a small kitchen, and walk under an overpass and up some steps into the home. As with many powerful and influential men throughout history, the great architect was quite the womanizer, we are told, not only taking commissions from his clients but, sometimes, their wives as well. Imagine that. Taller Isn’t Better As we move from room to room, I am struck with how some larger spaces are expansive, possessing tall ceilings, and yet, in others, they were lower and more intimate. One writer described his approach to interiors this way: Inside, Wright’s homes broke away from the series of little boxes that homes are most often divided into. Each domestic function has its own box, and the box was within a larger external box. He devised plans where the first floor was one large room – screening accomplished the task of dividing spaces into smaller user areas such as reading or dining. Yet, the flow and the visual sense was not divided. Upstairs, he left walls to maintain the privacy that humans in repose are accustomed to. Unnecessary doors disappeared, walls vanished, and the height of the ceilings was lowered to meet a band just above the windows. In this manner the ceiling visually wrapped onto the walls and expanded the room. These ideas of using his personal human scale in architecture helped Frank Lloyd Wright to refine his ideas of plasticity in architecture – architecture should be able to be shaped and molded. He used materials and scale to create a sense of being a part of a whole. He wasn’t building walls and ceiling, he was building space. (“Frank Lloyd Wright–Taller Isn’t Better”. SOSS.com) I also notice that, in spots, Wright makes good use of clerestory windows, which are a series of smaller windows running along the top of an exterior wall near or at the roofline (Craven, Jackie. “The Clerestory Window in Architecture: Natural Light Comes from Above.” Thoughtco.com), as well as skylights to provide adequate natural lighting in many of his rooms. His attention to detail–whether it’s grates on the floor, clever light fixtures, or ornate, linear designerly high back chairs–is visually arresting. There's an abundance of natural materials like limestone throughout, and the way he employs plywood, common and repurposed materials with such economy to achieve his aesthetic suggests that he was a pioneering precursor to the “Zero Waste Movement'' founded by Athens, Georgia’s ecologist Bill Sheehan and British Columbia-based activist, Hellen Spiegelman, in the U.S. and Canada circa 1993. (Upstreamsolutions.org) We walk through and marvel at his personal studio, a study with clerestory windows around the outer walls, a fireplace with an oil painting of his veneered mother above; a dining room with a grand piano, skylights and a majestic view, bedrooms, a garden room, his logia (a room with a side that opened to a garden), priceless Japanese prints, select artworks, and a walkway extending out some 75 feet from the second floor that he constructed for one of his beloved wives, providing her the chance to walk among the treetops. One elderly couple waved me over to note small indentations on Wright’s drafting table that he’d made while working on some of his designs. How magnificent! Towards the end of the tour, we circulated in Wright’s small studio that he built off his bedroom, where he’d spend long days and late nights working out his latest ideas. Awe and Surprising Connections I had studied architecture for the first year and a half of my collegiate career and, although years later I ended up an educator (I was on summer break when I visited Taliesin), I gained a deep respect and appreciation for great designers like Wright. Moreover, my aunt, Lou Wynne, a retired educator and artist based out of Colorado Springs, Colorado, had worked as a volunteer assistant at Taliesin West. She had lived with her late husband, Al Wynne, an acclaimed abstract painter, at their home and Wynne Studio in the Black Forest outside of Colorado Springs before he passed in August 2009 (their studio subsequently burned down in the notorious Black Forest Fire in 2013). "Lou worked in assisting FLW's granddaughter, also an architect, in research and other art related work in Colorado Springs for several years," my mother, Bes Ayllon informed me via text message last year. "Her full name escapes me now. Elizabeth Wright? But it was a great experience for Lou." As delightful as that was, I was in for a much bigger surprise recently. Mom sent me another text with photos of a signed letter that Frank Lloyd Wright had sent to Harold Wynne, the younger brother of Al Wynne, Lou's husband: Hi, Juan, I am sending you photos of a letter and envelope sent to Al’s younger brother in 1955, from Frank Lloyd Wright, concerning the selection of an architect for the chapel of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs at that time. Harold was city editor for the newspaper in Colorado Springs and had consulted with Wright. Lou thought you would be interested in reading them. Love, Mom Wright's wit, sarcasm, and love for a more organic, nature-friendly style of architectural design shines in his expressed displeasure of being rejected for an architectural commission to design a chapel for the Air Force Academy. He writes, in part: "The Air Force Academy looks to me as if another factory has moved in where it ought not to be. The place will probably be known as Talbot's Aviary or, more realistically, a factory for bird-men...When the great art of Architecture comes down to this sort of thing--what is the right name for such a violation of nature? The "Sanitary Age" will have too much stupid hostility to Nature to answer for." Talk about a portal into history! That was Frank Lloyd Wright’s candid and unvarnished writing, signed by Frank Lloyd Wright, to Aunt Lou's brother-in-law. How splendid! And, as surprising as it is, it also underscores the idea that even a brilliant and gifted architectural giant like Wright didn’t always win the commissions that he vied for. So, of course, my immediate takeaway is that when I pursue a golden opportunity and fail, I’m in good company! A Deeper Understanding and Appreciation
Having read that letter, it underscored my impressions of Wright and his affinity and respect for nature and conservation. Now even more so, after visiting Taliesin Wisconsin, I am awed and inspired by Wright's sublime genius, his virtuosic masterworks, and his organic, greener approach that he brought to Architecture and the world at large. That's not bad for a former engineering major who never took a formal course in architecture! No doubt, hard work, and working closely with the great Louis Sullivan in his early years helped immeasurably, yet Wright's achievements remain monumentous on their own accord. Summed up, the Taliesin Wisconsin is an experience well worth my five hour round trip--and then some! I highly recommend it. Taliesin Wisconsin https://www.taliesinpreservation.org/ Ticket Prices: Adult - $58; Student, Senior, Teacher & Military - $53 Make sure to book your tours in advance!
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