Taliesin West

 Frank Lloyd Wright - Taliesin West 💕

UNESCO World Heritage Site

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

Taliesin West was architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and school in the desert from 1937 until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. 

Today it is the headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Open to the public for tours, Taliesin West is located on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale, Arizona. 

The complex drew its name from Wright's home, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

The complex was built amid a 600-acre site in the foothills of the McDowell Peak in the Sonoran Desert with intent to complement Wright’s summer estate in Spring Green, Wisconsin (which he had named Taliesin, from a Welsh word meaning “shining brow”).

In Taliesin West, the first constructions (The “Historical Core” as it is called today, built between 1938 and 1941), were Wright’s office, the Drafting Studio, the kitchen and original dining room, the living quarters of the architect and his family, the “Garden Room”, the “Kiva” theater (subsequently converted into a library), the rooms for Wright’s assistants, a small bell tower, and a workshop.

Furthermore, a timber frame temporary structure, called the Sun Trap, was built in 1937 to accommodate the Wright family until the completion of their living quarters three years later.

In the following decades, until Wright’s death in 1959 and beyond, Taliesin West was repeatedly modified and enlarged with the addition of various buildings, including a new dining facility, a cabaret theater, a music pavilion, new workshops, a water tower, and residences for apprentices, staff members, and guests.

The complex was built, mostly by hand, by Wright’s apprentices using local stones, concrete, redwood, steel, recycled glass panels, and fabric.

The furniture was designed and crafted by the architect and his students as well, following the “learn by doing” principle upon which the Taliesin Fellowship was founded.

The structure's walls are made of local desert rocks, stacked within wood forms, filled with concrete - colloquially referred to as "desert masonry".

 Wright always favored using the materials readily available rather than those that must be transported to the site.

Natural light also played a major part in the design. In the drafting room, Wright used translucent canvas to act as a roof. In the south-facing dining room, Wright designed the roof to hang past the walls preventing unwanted sun rays from penetrating but allowing for horizontal light to pass through the room.

Every part of Taliesin West bears Frank Lloyd Wright's personal touch. He would walk through each room making changes or shouting orders to apprentices closely following with wheelbarrows and tools.

 He constantly changed and improved on his design fixing arising problems and addressing new situations.

Taliesin West continues as the headquarters of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and as the winter home for the School of Architecture at Taliesin. 

As in Wright's time, students and faculty spend the summers in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 12, 1974, and was designated as a National Historic Landmark on May 20, 1982.

In 2008, the U.S. National Park Service submitted Taliesin West along with nine other Frank Lloyd Wright properties to a tentative list for World Heritage Status. The 10 sites have been submitted as one single site.

Taliesin West and seven other properties were inscribed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" in July 2019.