Taliesin I

In a somewhat characteristic fashion, I seem to have gone about my Frank Lloyd Wright tour in more or less reverse order.  After a couple of Wright stops on the way out to the SouthWest, the major stop was Taliesin West, which, of course, is in the latter part of his career.  It is fascinating to see how the architecture and nature, the landscape and the plants and the light, all became interwoven and built on each other.  It was a new direction in many ways.  It was also a point at which Wright had pretty much become what he always said he was -- the best architect in the United States.

So, on my return swing, I went back toward the beginning and visited Taliesin in Wisconsin.  One of the intriguing things about the house here is that he was constantly changing and building it over differently.  Not just after the two disastrous fires or because there were repairs that needed to be done.  Photographs for a magazine article or a special visitor were enough reason.  And I don't mean redecorating.  No, it meant changing walls and windows and floors.  Making a terrace into part of a room.  Changing stables into apartments.  It gives new meaning to the term "work in progress".   Not always the most practical (Wright houses seem to have a tendency to leak) but always open, always beautiful, always integrating the world outside and the world inside.

The real beginning for Wright was Chicago and Oak Park.  Taliesin came later.  It was a dream, a life.  About refuge and work and disaster and keeping on and changing, over and over and over.  I can't get enough of the spirit and the beauty.  After watching the Mike Wallace interview with Wright, my goal was to have Wright design a house for me.  I never quite accomplished that, but I am grateful for the many ways he influenced places I have lived.