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| - Review #500!
To celebrate this occasion I'm sharing with you this gem that I visited last week... Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West, his winter home for the last 22 years of his life.
Why did the Egyptians build pyramids out in the desert in the middle of nowhere? Why is Stonehenge where it is? Who moved the heads to Easter Island? And who the heck would build a house on a rocky, desert hill, 26 miles from Phoenix, a place without electricity or running water? Frank Lloyd Wright would.
Taliesin West is an architectural marvel. A triangular palace that is stuffed floor-to-roof and wall-to-wall with Asian artifacts and museum worthy pieces. It houses an unrivaled view of the city of Phoenix, with the most perfect viewing angles for a person who is exactly 5'9" in height. Yes, he designed the views, the doors, the hallways to be best experienced by a person who is 5'9", like he was.
This is a place where rock, water, wood, metal, grass and cacti are all in balance. Pathway lighting was first imagined and developed here (in the Cabaret Theatre). The Guggenheim Museum? That was designed here in Frank Lloyd Wright's office. AutoCAD? That was developed my Mike Riddle, who worked on the computer systems at Taliesin West and took what he learned about architecture and design while working there to inspire his functional-to-this-day software.
If you are a fan of art, design, architecture, or just want to visit an ultimate desert escape, then Taliesin West in Scottsdale needs to be on your Phoenix hit list. Our wonderful tour guide was Marla, who gave us an informed and entertaining history of Frank and Oligvanna Lloyd Wright and their property along with insights into his personality and his genius nature. Marla has been leading tours for over 15 years and she still discovers something new every time she walks the property. My friend who did not know anything about Frank Lloyd Wright, arrived begrudgingly with skepticism but left wowed after taking the Insights Tour with me.
The site is active, as it serves as the Fall/Winter/Spring home for FLLW School of Architecture.
We went to the earliest Insights Tour at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday for $30. Tours after the first one are $36 each. The Insights Tour lasts 90 minutes and you get see most of the house, including the pool, the yard, the Drafting Room, their separate bedrooms, the Garden Room (living room), Kiva (a cave like meeting room), the Pavilion (large theater with stage), the Cabaret (a sunken smaller theater with cool rock walls and amazing sightlines and acoustics. If you feel baller or you really, really want to get to know the land, you can take the 3 hour "Behind the Scenes" tour which covers all of the Insights Tour plus a desert walk and mid-morning tea and snacks for $70 per person. I thought the 90 minute Insights Tour was just the right amount of time. They do provide complimentary umbrellas for you to use as sun shade during the hot summer months as well as a free bottle of water to keep you alive for the 20 minutes or so that you have to be outside while walking the property.
I arrived wanting to learn more about America's most famous architect and his work but this visit did more than just that, it awakened my eyes to be more aware of my surroundings, to appreciate nature, structure, and to be cognizant of our place in between that. Frank Lloyd Wright had that down pat, even if he was in the middle of nowhere.
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