Frank Lloyd Wright ‘Camp’ In Arizona Is Open To Public
Q. When I was at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in Springfield, Ill., I bought a book about Wright that listed places associated with him. One I would like to see is his western enclave near Phoenix. We will be there late this summer, but we are not sure whether this place is open or how to find it.
A. Taliesin West - the name comes from Wright’s original Taliesin in Wisconsin - is fascinating and open to the public. The cluster of Wright-designed buildings sits at the edge of the Sonora Desert in Scottsdale, Ariz., just east of Phoenix. If there is one main center dedicated to the Wright legend and style, this is it.
Admission is $14 adults, $11 seniors. Three different tours are offered, plus a desert walk. Tours last one to three hours, and figure on spending extra time looking at some of the 1,200 Wright designs and other exhibits. Anyone who wants a Wright-style house can buy blueprints of a 1997 “dream house,” designed by Taliesin architects, for $495.
Taliesin West is a sprawl of buildings built with rocks Wright and his apprentices gathered from the desert floor and sand from the washes. In typical Wright style, they created the buildings to blend with their desert surroundings. They used masonry walls, sturdy redwood trusses and broad concrete terraces that stretched across the desert floor. Wright called it a camp and said it “belonged to the desert as if it had stood there during creation.” Indeed, it appears timeless, but it is 60 this year and is already designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Wright wanted to let the outdoors in at Taliesin, and he made his roofs of white canvas. One big dining/kitchen area was without walls or windows, open to the outdoors. But Wright was there only in winter. Now that the 45,000 square feet of buildings are used year-round, this area is glassed in and permanent roofs are replacing the canvas. Other restoration work in progress will repair sun and rain damage over the years, seepage into walls that caused paint to flake, interior beams to splinter and decorative moldings to decay. Air conditioning has been added.
One feature that strikes anyone over about 5-feet-5 are the doors throughout the complex. Wright designed oddly-shaped doors, off center or slightly leaning. Visitors learn that the great architect was about 5 feet 2, so he never banged his head on a doorway. Taller adults should duck.
As related by the tour guide I followed around the compound, Wright came to greater Phoenix in 1937 from Spring Grove, Wis., site of the original Taliesin, to escape the harsh winters. He chose a site at the edge of the desert and began building before Scottsdale existed. Taliesin is a Welsh word for shining brow, and the desert compound was built under the brow of a hill to blend with the contour of the earth there.
The whole entourage of family and apprentices returned to Wisconsin in summer. Often strapped for money, they traveled back and forth in a caravan of 15 cars and trucks, camping and cooking along the way.
Scottsdale has grown out to meet the suburban Taliesin spread, but the compound is still surrounded on three sides by desert where Saguaro cacti - with cigar-shaped bodies and upthrust arms - stand like giant green men surprised by a posse.
Taliesin West is the international headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which operates a school of architecture, the Wright archives and Taliesin Architects Ltd. At the school, limited to 35 students, costs total $9,500 a year per student.
From Taliesin, at 14th Street and Cactus Road, Phoenix can be seen to the west with a yellow-green smoggy haze hanging over it.
Scottsdale, with 125 golf courses, is an upscale city that’s a good place to visit from October through April, out of the desert summer’s heat. When it was incorporated 50 years ago, 10 years after Wright arrived, horses had the right of way and hitching posts were installed in front of downtown stores. This has become an “Old Town” district, not far from the swank shopping/arts area with more than 100 galleries and studios. Wright is credited with attracting many of the artists.
Scottsdale Jeep Rentals offers self-guided tours of city and desert, including the Superstition Mountains and Lost Dutchman State Park, where Jacob Waltz’s legendary gold mine is said to be.
For more about Scottsdale, contact the Chamber of Commerce at (800) 877-1117. Motel and hotel reservations in the whole Phoenix-Scottsdale area can be made by calling (800) SAVE-CASH or on the Internet at www.savecash.com.