Taliesin West

Frank Lloyd Wright first visited the grounds of Taliesin West in the winter of 1937. He was seventy years old at the time, in search of a place to work amid the brumal months. Dry, rural, and ever-reaching, the desert plot was a visual foil to the pastoral landscape of his Wisconsin home. It was exactly what he’d been looking for.

Not wasting a moment, Wright sent word to the members of the Taliesin Fellowship — the apprenticeship program he founded five years prior. His instructions were simple: Leave the workshop in Spring Green and meet him on the outskirts of Scottsdale with a list of supplies. Before long, thirty-some-odd tents strewed the Arizonan acreage and building began.

From the onset, it was unlike any of Wright’s previous projects. Something in the sun-drenched terrain stirred his imagination. There was no set precedent leading its design — no singular vision, client, or end use. Instead, it offered a blank canvas, an opportunity for experimentation.