We took off from Chicago to Spring Green Wisconsin, to tour
Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's second home and summer “camp” for his apprentice
school of architecture. We figured we
might never get this close again, so we did the jog north and bought the most
comprehensive tickets we could. Spring
Green is a very small farming town. We
did see a Little Free Library there, but the only grocery was like an IGA and
expensive. There were many roadside
stands, however, that sold “sweet corn”!!
After we left Taliesin, Dave and I were pretty quiet. It was just a lot to take in. The complex had close to a dozen buildings,
with 4 main buildings available to tour.
It reminded me a little of Auldbrass in that it was a working farm. We were only allowed to take pictures of the
outside of buildings. The tour was
refreshing in that Cindi, our guide was a very plain-spoken Midwesterner, and
didn’t sugarcoat Mr. Wright’s genius, or shortcomings. For instance, she pointed out that because he
used “Welch foundations” which are strip footings on top of gravel, the
buildings are now settling and need major stabilization. To create a sense of the outside coming in,
he would often join widows with a miter in the corners, which are now settling,
and leaking both water and air. The
entire complex closes during the winter (mid October) and for many years was
only heated with fireplaces and a boiler just for the residence. So there has been a lot of freeze/thaw
damage. We talked several times about
how he would react to today’s building codes: no hand rails, no handicap
accessibility, low heights and head clearance, uneven stairs, etc. At one point Cindi quoted Mr Wright as
saying, “Anyone over 6 ft. tall was a waste of building materials. (he was
5’8” – though claimed to be 5’10”) She
referred several times to his “orneriness” and how the apprentices are still “allowed” to chose
chores from a “joy list” which includes housekeeping and cooking duties, and working in the
gardens and grounds. When interviewing
apprentices, they are told about all of the extra chores (I suspect they
already know about them.), and it is impressed upon them that they are entering
into a year or more of a lifestyle change, as much as a school. Yet despite all of this, his genius of
manipulating space, his attention to detail, his sense of organic elements,
bringing the outside in, is truly amazing.
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| A tree encroaching on Taliesin |
We began at the original school, which started as a boarding
school for children ran by Wright’s sisters.
They were Unitarian and the school was very avant garde for its
time. When the old Victorian house
burned down, Wright built them a Prairie style school, which when the school
failed during the Depression (and after the murder and fire at Taliesin) became
part of the architectural school. The
theatre there was amazing with a curtain designed like one of Wright’s art
glass windows. The drafting room had
working architect/interns there and we saw several display boards and models of
their current projects. The use of light
through skylights and clearstory windows, allowed the maximum natural light
without providing distractions. When I
commented on the little use of art glass at both the school and residence,
Cindi explained that art glass was just used to “cover up” an unpleasant urban
view. Here in the country all of the
windows frame a view of nature.
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| The school. Outer rooms are dorm rooms, the skylights and clearstory windows bring light into the studio on the interior |
From there we walked the property past the midway farm and
barns and the “romeo and juliet” windmill.
The barn was pretty dilapidated and had not been restored except to keep
it standing. It had a house attached to
it so that at one time there had been
people, cows, horses, chickens, and just about every farm animal except pigs
living under one roof. The house is
still occupied, but the barn is just used as storage.
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| The barn. The round "turret" is a cold room for milk from the dairy cows |
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| Disrepair at the barn. Someone lives in the structure in the foreground! |
The windmill was amazing.
His sisters asked him to build an aesthetically pleasing one out of wooda
vs. metal. All the farmers said it would
fail in the wind. He used a triangle
(Romeo) butting up against a hexagon (Juliet).
The triangle was pointed in the direction of the prevailing winds and
would act like the prow of a boat and airplane, pushing the triangle into the
hexagon, thus surrounding the structure with wind, and using the winds to
actually push the structures together and actually stabilized it. Mr. Wright commented after his brothers in
law died, that “the structure was still upright, and his critics were
horizontal.”
Then we walked uphill (not the best day to “break in “ a new
pair of shoes!!) to the main complex. It
consisted of 3 buildings all joined either by a common roof or breezeway. There was another barn, which we did not go
into, the studio, and the residence. When asked how many square feet there
were, Cindi reported that Mr. Wright recorded it as
39,000sf, as he considered the outdoor space part of the structure.
The studio was used mainly by Mr. Wright and a small number
of apprentices, before the main school was converted. There were several drafting/drawing spaces
and a large conference space, and several small conference rooms for meeting
clients. In this space, he often used
the ceiling height to define a space and to make one feel either snug or cozy,
or impressed by the openness of the large spaces, depending on their function.
The residence was used for almost 50 years by Mr. Wright and
his last 2 wives. It was built by the
apprentices and it burned twice. Each time it was rebuilt, it was expanded
plus it served as his laboratory for trying out new ideas, “most” of which
worked, or if they didn’t, he would have his apprentices tear it out and try
something else new. It was a real mix of
craftsmanship, and apprenticeship. Some
of the add-on’s fit and others didn’t.
And at least 2 were added at the whim of his 3rd wife and
stepdaughter. At 8 years old, his
stepdaughter voiced a desire for her own apartment, and soon there was a
partial second story, just for her (with a very short, child-sized door – what
happened as she grew?). Once his 3rd
wife looked out at the view of the trees and said it was like a treehouse and “wouldn’t it be nice to walk among the
birds.” Thus a cantilevered bridge to
nowhere was added. (The trees have since
died and I was disappointed we didn’t get to walk out on it.)
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| The residential wing with the bridge to nowhere |
Besides the daughter’s apartment (which we
also didn’t see), there was just 3 bedrooms (tho there were servant quarters
separate from the residence). Mr. Wright
didn’t believe in large bedrooms as he thought they were just for sleep. The master bedroom was only a “master”
because it had its own bath. It was
later turned into a guest room, and the two guest rooms were turned into Mr.
and Mrs. Bedrooms. Here Mr. Wright broke
his own rule and created a HUGE suite for himself. It had a small sleeping alcove with a single
bed, a large “den” with a drafting table for him, and a large terrace
overlooking the pond and waterfall.
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| The residence at Taliesin |
Electricity did not come to Taliesin until the 40’s, but
Wright dammed a creek and created a waterfall for a hydro-generator and had
electricity in the 20’s. To make money
during lean times, and to support as many apprentices as possible, there are
“apartments” all over the property, in the barns, outbuildings and attached to
the main buildings. Once as we were
walking around the barn, Cindi pointed
out a section that needed renovation and stabilization. “We will probably start it in a few years,
when the 90 yr. old architect who lives
there ‘moves out’”. The apprentices move
in October to Taliesin West in Arizona, and a skeleton staff is there year round.
When asked, Cindi, told us that there were differing
opinions among the staff about the novel written about Wright and his wives,
especially the murder of his second wife Memah.
Some of the “old timers” felt it
was sensationalizing his life, but most others embraced the book, because of
its historical accuracy (in historical details, if not dialogue), and for the fact that if
resulted in a deluge of folks coming for tours and joining the foundation. She said that right after the book they added
a “Loving Frank” tour to accommodate all of the book clubs that descended upon
them. They tried (and she felt were
successful) in converting them from sensationalism to an appreciation of
architecture as practiced by Frank Lloyd Wright.
After our 4 hr. tour, we ate at the visitor’s center which
started as a restaurant designed by Mr. Wright, then Deb went home to nurse her
blisters!
We then drove on into Iowa and stayed at a Palisades Kepler
State Park. We were the only campers
there! We are going to “boogie” on I-80
for the next few days, pushing through
the plains and prairie. As I write this I am
surrounded by rolling hills and more corn and soybeans than I ever thought
possible. Often we see windmills on a
ridge, and the rest stop on the interstate we just passed had a windmill blade erected
as a statue…. At least 4 stories tall!!
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