Assignment 10 - Narrative

Introduction

For the last thirty years of his life, celebrated Modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) resided in two versions of a compound he called Taliesin (in Wisconsin) and Taliesin West (located in the McDowell Mountains, twenty-six miles northeast of Phoenix, Arizona). “Taliesin,” which translates to “shining brow,” comes from a Celtic bard in either the Sixth-Century or Middle Ages (depending on which legend one believes). The poet-hero celebrated great battles in the history of Wales, the country from which Wright’s family emigrated. 

Since both Taliesin in Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Scottdale are grand homes, one surmises they represent the Welsh urge to “make another version of the one they had left [behind in Wales] – one that was better, truer, more their own” (Secrest, pp. 29-31 of 957). In other ways, the name Taliesin seemed appropriate since Wright’s own life had had something of the restless itinerant about it: a child of immigrants who was married three times, was shunned by Chicago society for his affair with the woman whose status changed from client to lover, experiencing the horror of her murder at the hands of an unbalanced servant who set fire to the original Taliesin, rebuilding it, surviving a second disastrous marriage, then remarrying for the final time, all while designing landmark buildings which would become cornerstones of modern architecture. In 2019, Taliesin West was granted the status of a UNESCO World Heritage site.  

Wright borrowed his architectural inspiration from Emerson and the Transcendentalists, believing “in the natural world as the source of physical and spiritual fulfillment.” For him, “organic” architecture was a way of “building naturally, in the nature of materials, to unite man and his built world with nature, the human spirit, and the universe” (quoted in Huxtable, Location 454 of 2795). The inception of Taliesin West is the result of natural forces coalescing seemingly effortlessly.

In 1928, Wright met Dr. Alexander Chandler, who owned land around Scottsdale, Arizona, while Wright was working on the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. Chandler dreamed of creating his development, called San Marcos-in-the-Desert, but was having difficulties finding a reliable way to provide water. He subsequently persuaded Wright to help him out of his dilemma. (Huxtable, Location 1987 of 2795). In January 1929, Wright relocated to the desert with fifteen staff members, his wife, and children. Unable to find economical lodgings, he created the Ocotillo desert camp (the precursor to Taliesin West) on Chandler’s land near the Salt Range Mountains. Although the Depression temporarily halted this seasonal wandering, Wright and his third wife, Olgivanna, used the time up north to found the Taliesin Fellowship Program in 1932. The program became both an architectural and cultural school. Wright’s students worked as gardeners, cooks, and performed general maintenance, making the experience a character-and-skill-building program. By 1938, Wright, his family, and students would decamp for Arizona in the fall, finding it more congenial than wintering in Wisconsin.   

The initial compound in 1929 consisted of fifteen cabins with canvas roofs and wooden frames, connected by wood walls, culminating in “an angular enclosure around a central campfire with raised seats.” The overall look of the camp was “like a group of gigantic butterflies with scarlet-wing spots” because the end wood panels were painted in the same hue of red as the petals of the Ocotillo flowers. The overall look of the camp “conform[ed] gracefully to the outcropping of black splintered rock gently uprising from the desert floor … like ships coming down the mesa.”  (quoted in Huxtable, Locations 1994 to 2005 of 2795). While living in this initial framework, Wright grew fond of the idea of natural light permeating a space, unlike in Wisconsin, where he felt “oppressed by the opaque solid overhead of the much too heavy Midwestern houses” because “the too obvious wearies the eye too soon, stultifies the imagination.” This camp would follow the asymmetry of nature, full of its “lightness and strength.” To this end, what occurred in Taliesin West manifests as expressing indigenous natural themes and motifs that he fashioned into “evocative abstractions.” Flat plane surfaces were embossed with the markings of the saguaro cactus (quoted in Huxtable, Location 2015 of 2795). Wright loved triangular forms; as he explained in his aborted design for the San-Marcos-in-the-Desert development, the main inspiration was based on the triangle because the cross-sections of his much-beloved Saguaro cactuses were triangular (Secrest, pp. 560-561 of 957). Even though said development was never built, one can see many references to triangles in Taliesin West in its design, which resembles nothing so much as “a cluster of pavilions that simultaneously outline and juxtapose themselves against the nearby and distant mountains” (Smith, p. 90). 

When Wright and his party returned nine years later, he put many of the ideas he pioneered into practice. These ideas included his Usonian principles of flat roofs with deep overhangs, plenty of windows to provide light and outdoor views for those inside, passive solar heating, and openings for daytime breezes. These were especially helpful since the enclave ran on electrical power from a turbine attached to the dam below Taliesin (Secrest, p. 639 of 957). The building materials used in Taliesin West were natural and organic; he created his own desert masonry for the walls, which he called “desert rubble stone,” comprised of Portland cement, with rocks and sand culled from the site itself. Redwood beams were angled to mimic the local mountain ranges. Initially, canvas roofs, which reminded Wright of a tent that filtered light within a space, completed the camp-like ambiance. The interlapping of triangles resulted in a hexagonal footprint for the enclave, which contained its built-in dynamism (Huxtable, Location 2431 of 2795; Smith, p. 97).

Wright’s students began their residence in tents erected in the desert, where they would likely have nocturnal visits from scorpions and rattlesnakes. As their studies progressed, they built their dwellings in stages so they would clearly understand what it was like to live in their creations by the time they graduated. Many of these individual “dorms” still exist on the site today, with several undergoing preservation.  

Tour

We will tour Taliesin West, visiting 11 locations throughout the property. We will observe Wright's work, that of his his apprentices, and of his students at these locations and how the buildings integrate into the desert landscape. The tour starts at the entrance, proceeds along the front of the main building (called the Prow), then to the private gardens, the rear of the buildings, and some of the student housing. This tour moves in a counterclockwise direction.

Reflection

During the tour, which was in the early afternoon on a bright sunny day in March, I was going from indoors to outdoors frequently. I chose this time because I wanted to leave plenty of time for photos before the facility closed in the late afternoon. The lighting presented many challenges for interior photos since the intense light shining through windows overwhelmed the scene. Unfortunately, none of the interior photos were usable. For exterior shots, the light created deep shadows. The plethora of tourists visiting the site further complicated matters. I patiently waited for them to clear out of a space to take photos. Unfortunately, during the part of my visit when I was accompanied by a guide, I was not diligent about resetting the ISO when moving between indoors and outdoors. The result was using a higher ISO value than appropriate on several photos, including “Portal.” Luckily, my camera did not introduce noise into an already-problematic situation.  

I was able to correct many of the problems in Lightroom. I first checked the white balance. Since the photos were shot with auto-white balance enabled, only a few needed adjustments. I then leveled the image if required. I then adjusted highlights and shadows to eliminate clipping. For the remainder of the challenges, I used two approaches depending on the situation. For photos where there were clear geometric patterns like "Climb to the Rock" or "Studio", I used this methodology in preparing the photos:

• Created a mask for the sky and lowered the exposure so it was not washed out.

• Created masks for the overexposed portions of buildings and lowered the light portions using the tone curve.

• Created masks for the deep shadows and increased the dark portions using the tone curve.

• Fine-tuned photos with dehazing and clarity.

For photos with no apparent patterns or where foliage dominated the scene:

• More aggressively increased dehazing, clarity, and shadows

• More aggressively decreased highlights.

• Fine-tuned the blacks and whites.

• Created a mask for the sky and increased hazing (negative dehazing) to address adverse impacts.

The photos appear somewhat desaturated. This reflects the way the buildings looked in real life after decades of weathering the harsh Arizona sun.

Considering the scope of my ambitions for this project, although I am reasonably happy with the result, I wish I had considered the potential problems with light in the desert and booked my tour for later in the afternoon or earlier in the morning when the light was less harsh. Unfortunately, there was no possibility of rebooking, so, much like the creation of Taliesin West, I worked with what was available within context. In retrospect, there is probably very little I would change about this experience.

Notes

Haller, Sonja. “Revealed: 10 Taliesin West Treasures Hidden in Plain Sight.” The Arizona Republic. Last modified 25 August, 2015. Accessed 17 April, 2023. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2015/08/24/scottsdale-taliesin-west-treasures-hidden-plain-sight/32266401/.   

Huxtable, Ada Louise, Frank Lloyd Wright:  A Life. (New York:  Penguin Books, 2004; Kindle Edition).

Secrest, Meryle.  Frank Lloyd Wright. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992; A Knopf e-book). 

Smith, Kathryn. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and Taliesin West. Photographs by Judith Bromley. (New York:  Harry N. Abrams, 1997).

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