Apartment Choice

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...

The Mobile City Council has approved the sale of the Water Street building known as City Hall North , clearing its way for redevelopment as an apartment complex , and a consultant on the project said that groundbreaking could come next spring. District 2 Councilman Levon Manzie announced his "100 percent support" for the project and pledged to assist developers any way he could. "I can't think of a better way to describe 350 St. Joseph Street than to say it's not now needed for public or municipal purposes," Manzie said as the council voted. "It has been a blight on that corner of DeTonti Square for a long time. And that entrance is one of the gateways to our beautiful city." "I know those employees who worked at old City Hall North are not sad to see it go," commented Council President Gina Gregory . "It will be a tremendous improvement." Occupying a roughly triangular lot where St. Joseph Street hits Water Street , the bu...