Spent the day at Taliesin with my mother yesterday, taking both the school and the house tours. I realized this year it’s kind of silly that I’ve lived in the area most of my life, and my father was a Frank Lloyd Wright fanatic, but I’d never been to Taliesin, which is actually on the road to my mother’s house. I wish I had some pictures to post, but 1) they only let you take outdoor photos, 2) I had the old digital with me, so the ones I took aren’t that great, and 3) I didn’t even take that camera to the house tour, since I thought it was going to rain (it didn’t).
What struck me was how comfortable the spaces seemed. A few more inches in some of the ceiling heights, and you could move right in. Also, from every vantage point throughout the estate you saw something interesting – a roof line, a window, a terrace, a lamp, a curtain. Your eyes are always engaged without getting overwhelmed. The natural materials (mostly wood and stone from local forests and quarries) make you feel calm and centered.
Quite a contrast to the recent Madison Parade of Homes, which my mother visited as she does every year. She showed me the house catalog, and described to me how none of these showy, ostentatious, cold houses were worth living in. The choppy floor plans were in great contrast to Wright’s flowing spaces, which use ceiling height and other subtle changes to denote different areas. The triple-height formal living rooms, rarely entered, are mostly filled with the ugliest furniture a lot of money can buy. Most new houses these days, Parade or not, look and feel like they were stamped out of a plastic mold.
How much damage to our psyches are we doing living in houses like these?
Great post! Wright was definitely a master. There’s something to be said about the “feel” of a house/living space. With that being said, how is your neighbor?