The Legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West Endures
Frank Lloyd Wright , Olgivanna Wright (his wife), and their architectural apprentices began traveling to Arizona from Taliesin—Wright’s original Wisconsin home and studio—in the 1920s to consult on the Arizona Biltmore hotel and other projects. A near-fatal bout of pneumonia and the high cost of heating Taliesin during Depression- era winters convinced Wright in 1937 to search for a place to create a desert “camp” where the group could live cheaply and enjoy winter sunshine . Most of the buildings constructed at Taliesin West , as the Arizona location was called, were built by the apprentices under Wright's direction between 1938 and the mid-1950s. “Wright used Taliesin West as an architecture lab where he experimented with materials, forms and technology,” says Stuart Graff, CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation , the nonprofit that oversees both Taliesin locations . “His influence still holds today—how we live, how we build, how we affect the environment.” The apprenti...