Taliesin

http://www.taliesinpreservation.org/

We left Madison after eating a quick breakfast at the hotel. We wanted to reach the Frank Lloyd Wright estate, Taliesin, in Spring Green in time for one of the 10AM tours. Most of the drive turned out to be on major country roads (US highways) but it was still slower than what it looked like it would be from the map. We missed the tour we had wanted to take by about five minutes.

We did get the next departing tour, however, which was good. It cost $50/person rather than $16/person for the tour we missed, which was a bit of a shock to the wallet for a family of four, but it did take two hours rather than one and you got to tour two of the buildings rather than one.

It left from the visitor center, which was itself a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright to be a restaurant. And part of it still does serve as a restaurant - as well as a book store and a space for exhibits.

The Taliesin estate itself served as a living workshop for Wright for some seventy years. He designed many buildings and structures there to serve many different purposes. There are many, many different tours that visit different parts of the estate and focus on different parts of his genius. He was a landscape architect as well as an architect, and also designed everything from curtains to dishes to furniture to dresses for the hostesses of "his" houses to wear so that they wouldn't clash with the house he designed.

The tour we took is called the Highlights Tour and took two hours. We got to visit the school he built for his aunts, and we got to visit his house (his main residence for most of his life it is called Taliesin, as is the estate itself). We also got to briefly view (while driving by) a gorgeous windmill and the barns (the estate was a working farm for most of the time Wright lived there).

The first stop was Hillside School. It was amazing. In a time when big fancy Victorian architecture was the "in" thing, he was inspired by Japanese temple architecture for the assembly hall. He built it with no weight bearing walls - the four great corner columns/pillars bear the weight. This let him put in tons of windows, so the building just seems to open up to the beautiful surrounding Wisconsin countryside. He somehow managed to put in perfect acoustics in the public areas of the school buildings. The theater was stunning, with the windows to let in natural light for afternoon music concerts, its acoustics, the comfortable (and beautiful) seats, and the curtain that was an abstract design of Taliesin overlooking the valley of the Wisconsin River. He played with the ceiling heights so that people would automatically move about the building to where they should be, rather than milling around in front of the doors and blocking traffic. And the architecture studio! An indoor forest, with the windows in the roof pouring in lovely light.

We then drove to the house, which was quite a contrast to the school. He built the school from the best available local materials, and finished them - ie. smoothed the stones in the wall, etc.

For his house he used shoddy local materials, and left them unfinished. He did this because he was always tinkering with the house. Apparently he would have his architecture students add on an addition, then rip it down and build something else in its place quite often. But the house was fascinating. Again, he played with the ceiling heights to "herd" his guests. The house was built on the crown of a hill, following the contours of the land. It had so much glass, it was really integrated into its surroundings. Again, the perfect acoustics for the public areas. Lots of work space and studio space, with lots of natural light. Lots of courtyard/patio areas with fountains with burbling water. Parts of the roof were so close to the ground a cat jumped right up on the roof and was trotting around.

It was amazing. The man was unquestionably a true genius.