ABOUT TALIESEN WEST BUILT BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

1. by
FATHIMA RIZWANA

6. Taliesin West
• Location -Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard,
Scottsdale, Arizona
• Area -620 acres
• Built -1937
• Architect-Frank Lloyd Wright

7. Taliesin
• 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 main campus of the Frank Lloyd
Wright School of Architecture and houses the
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

8. Taliesin
• In 1937 Wright purchased the plot of desert
land that would soon become Taliesin West.
• Wright believed this to be the perfect spot for
such a building: a place of residence, a place
of business and a place to learn.

9. Well
• An investment of over $10,000 was needed, to
dig a well deep enough to provide sufficient
water for the campus.

10. planning
• During the construction of Taliesin West, the
house and studio were merely a series of “sleeping
boxes” that were clustered around a central
terrace for Wright and his apprentices.
• When the main portion of the house and studio
were completed by the apprentices, the different
spaces of the house for Wright and his wife, the
apprentices, and the gathering spaces were all
organized to maintain a certain sense of privacy
within, but a formal compositional balance with
the landscape.
• Taliesin West is less of a singular building as it is a
series of spaces that are connected through
terraces, gardens, and pools

13. Materials
• One of the most significant uses of material and
details of the house is Wright’s employment of
the desert stone found on the site.
• Through the use of redwood formwork, the flat
faces of the stones were faced outwards and the
space in between the stones were combined with
a concrete mix that make up the larger stone
walls and structural elements of the house.
• Wright also used a natural redwood timber for
the roofing structure and parts of the house and
studio’s facade.

21. Drafting room
• Natural light also played a major part in the
design.
• In the drafting room, Wright used translucent
canvas to act as a roof (later replaced by plastic
because of the intense wear from the Arizona
sun).

28. Cabaret
• A brilliant aspect of Wright’s design is the
cabaret theatre. Built with six sides, out of the
standard rock-concrete mixture, in an
irregularly hexagonal shape, the theatre
provides its occupants with what someone
has called “95% acoustic perfection”.
Someone sitting in the back row can hear the
lightest whisper from a speaker on stage.

29. cabaret
• And ever sensitive to the dimensions and
natural poses of the human body, Wright
angled the seats in each row in such a way
that when guests crossed their legs, and threw
one arm over the back of the seat, as they
inevitably did, they would be facing directly
towards the stage and thus be able to watch
the performance in greater comfort.

33. Living room
• Wright argued that as the average person was rarely
over six feet in height, his doorways could stop there.
• He designed his living room and the chairs in it with a
similar reasoning.
• The room measures 56 by 34 feet, enough space to
allow everyone a seat.
• He designed the chairs in this room based, again, on
the actual average height of a man and a woman and
angled the arms low on purpose to provide more
comfort.
• He is said to have claimed that no matter what a person
looked like, he would look good in one of his chairs.

36. Landmark
• The structure was designated a National
Historic Landmark in 1982.

37. Garden room

45. Pool

57. Furniture and interiors

65. Exterior