TALIESIN HOUSE
By Frank Lloyd Wright
This essay contains an analysis of the significance and uniqueness of the Taliesin House built by Frank Llyod Wright.
Taliesin (Figure 1), built in the 20th century, in 1911 by Frank Lloyd Wright, is located in North America, the region known to be the Driftless Area, Jones Valley, the Wisconsin River valley was the estate of an American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and an extended exemplar of
the Prairie School of architecture. The original structure was designed under the
Prairie School's guiding principles, simulating the plains' flatness and the Driftless Region of Wisconsin's natural limestone outcroppings.This building was initially given the Welsh name Taliesin, which means "shining brow," and later the entire estate.
Two large fires that occurred during Wright's stay resulted in significant changes, and these phases of the house are now known as Taliesin I, II, and III. In 1914, after a disgruntled worker set fire to the living quarters and killed his mistress and six other workers, Wright reconstructed the Taliesin residential wing. Wright only occasionally utilized this second version while working on projects abroad. After the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo was completed in 1922, he returned to the house. In April 1925, a fire brought on by electrical issues damaged the residential quarters. Wright finished building the third iteration of the habitation by the end of 1925. Financial problems led to the Bank of Wisconsin foreclosing on the structure in 1927. With friends' financial assistance, Wright could reacquire and reoccupy the structure by November 1928. He started a fellowship for aspiring architects at the estate in 1932. Although he started
spending the winters at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, after Taliesin III was finished in 1937, Wright lived at Taliesin III for the rest of his life.
At his passing in 1959, Wright left Taliesin and the 600-acre Taliesin Estate to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which he and his third wife had established in 1940. Until Taliesin Preservation, Inc. was established in late 1992, a nonprofit company devoted to maintaining the structure and estate in Wisconsin, this group handled restorations of the estate. In 1976, the Taliesin property received national historic landmark status, and in July 2019, the Taliesin building was included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Most people are familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright from the numerous Prairie Style houses he created between 1900 and 1920. They attracted the upper middle class residents during a period of urban chaos because they were so drastically different from the fashionable Victorian residences of the time. Even
though these houses lack basements and attics, his architectural style features long rows of windows, low-pitched roofs, and the horizontal, low-slung lines of the American prairie
environment (Figure 2). Other than that, in order to encourage a sense of community
among residents and a peaceful relationship with the natural world, interior walls were minimized, an open layout was created, and long windows to ensure it (Figure 3)
Apart from Prairie Style architecture, which he primarily used for his early designs, Frank Lloyd Wright also contributed to developing the idea of organic architecture. He primarily
used this idea in his later compositions, which included interiors and exteriors that were harmoniously balanced. According to this concept, a house may be compared to a living thing where each component contributes to the total, and form and function are completely entwined.
The Taliesin House is one of his creations that exhibits his organic architectural style. He employs organic architecture principles when creating the Taliesin House, including using natural building materials, striving to build in harmony with nature, letting the interiors flow and interact with the outside, removing corners to create more space, and using the idea of designing from the inside out, where he attempted to convey the interior through the exterior form of the building. The Taliesin House building, made from local rock bonded with desert sand and decorated with redwood beams and splashes of Cherokee red, blends well with the surroundings in this structure.
Taliesin was built with Wright's intention to live harmoniously with his lineage and nature. He chose only local building materials. The house was designed to nestle into a hillside, an example of Wright's "organic architecture."One of his trademarks, ribbons on his windows, bring nature into the home. The transition from inside to outside was fluid and radical for its time. Wright chose yellow limestone for the house from a quarry with outcrops in the nearby hills. The stones were laid on long, narrow ridges reminiscent of the natural methods found in quarries and driftless areas. Sienna was mixed into the interior wall plaster to give the final product a golden hue. This made the application resemble sand on the banks of the nearby Wisconsin River.
The plaster walls were similar but grayish due to the cement mixture. The windows were positioned so that the sun entered through each room, opening at any time of the day. Wright chose not to install gutters to let icicles form in the winter. The shingles of the gradually sloping roof are designed to weather to a silvery-grey color that matches nearby trees' branches. A porte-cochere was constructed over the main entrance to the living quarters to provide shelter for passing vehicles.
Taliesin is a unique building site that records time. It combines design and function that have changed over the 60 years since Wright's mansion and over 60 years after his death in 1959. This evolution shows that buildings can adapt to change and maintain their characteristics. Taliesin responds to its natural position and life, accepting differences and additions without compromising its original concept. This is reflected in the modifications and buildups in the creation of Taliesin II and Taliesin III.
This house stands apart from traditional Prairie-style homes and is an excellent example of what Wright calls "natural homes," with its strong connection to the landscape and use of local materials. The innovations in this Taliesin house are so ubiquitous today that it may seem like they have always existed. Thanks to Wright's forward-thinking, many of us have grown up with open floor plans, vast expanses of windows, and many other innovations that seemed progressive at the time.
As explained, it can be said that The Taliesin House’s concept of integrating the building with nature becomes one of its most prominent focal points. Wright believed that buildings should complement and be hand-in-hand with their surroundings. Therefore through this belief, he designed this house to seamlessly blend into the gently rolling hills and lush vegetation of the countryside around it. Taliesin House's use of natural materials like stucco, stone, and wood is another distinctive feature. According to Wright, doing so made the building feel more connected to its surroundings. Wright's aforementioned distinctive "Prairie Style" architecture, which is distinguished by long horizontal lines, low-pitched roofs, and open floor plans, is also incorporated into the home.
To conclude, The Taliesin House, perhaps most significantly, is the pinnacle of Wright's "organic architecture" philosophy, which stresses the unity of all design components, including the building, the landscape, and the inhabitants. The house's integration with nature, use of organic materials, and open, flowing spaces that foster a feeling of connection and community are all examples of this philosophy in action. The uniqueness of its Prairie Style with long rows of windows, low pitched roofs, and a horizontal, low-slung profile made the how stand out and give
an impression that its strongly connected to the ground. While long rows of windows making sure that the people inside still have a panoramic views of the nature, connect both human nature the surroundings. This reflects Wright’s intention to live in harmony with nature, with the design blending seamlessly into the surrounding landscape. Furthermore, perhaps, this house uniqueness also comes in its ability to adapt to change while maintaining its original concept. Overall, Wright's Taliesin House is an exceptional and essential piece of architecture that continues to inspire and impact architects and designers worldwide. It perfectly captures Wright's idea of harmony between nature and design.
Reference:
Kaufmann, E. (1965). Frank Lloyd Wright’s Years of Modernism, 1925-1935. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians,24(1), 31–33. https://doi.org/10.2307/988277
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Retrieved April 7, 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Taliesin-and-Taliesin-West Uechi, N. (2009). Evolving Transcendentalism: Thoreauvian Simplicity in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and Contemporary Ecological Architecture. The Concord Saunterer, 17, 73–98.
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Manager. (2022, March 11). Taliesin: Forever relevant. Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin. Retrieved April 7, 2023, from https://www.taliesinpreservation.org/taliesin-forever-relevant/
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