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Biltmore Hotel
Taliesin West
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By 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright was not only
growing tired of the harsh Wisconsin winters ( I can only imagine; a call to
our friends had confirmed the 15-18 inches of snow that had fallen and the
four-foot drifts in our driveway), he was also growing broke. The trip
to Phoenix in 1927 to consult on the Biltmore Hotel must have piqued the
imagination of the Master Architect; he was fated to return to the desert to
found the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. Originally known
as the Taliesin Fellowship, the little "camp" of architects would grow into
Taliesin West on the six hundred acres Wright purchased around 1937 at the
foothills of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale.
It is difficult to imagine Scottsdale in the
late 1930s, when the population was barely 2700, especially today when it is
more than a quarter million and still growing. (He likely paid little
more than the $2.50 per acre that it cost U.S. Army Chaplain, Winfield
Scott -- who the city is named after -- back in the early 1880s.)
Entering the "estate" however, imagination is easier; the desert surrounding
Taliesin West swallows it whole. It is not until one is on the
"doorstep" to the place, that one can see anything at all of the buildings;
they so perfectly blend in with the desert. In Wright's own words,
Taliesin West would be "a look over the rim of the world", serving as an
architectural laboratory for him for the next 20 years.
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