Behind the Scenes at Taliesin

A new book examines the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his “fellowship.”

Founded in 1932, during a period when Wright, in his mid-60s, was floundering professionally and personally, the Taliesin Fellowship, modeled loosely on Arts and Crafts communities in Europe, offered a way to raise funds and keep his architecture studio fully staffed even when he had no clients. In fact, as Zellman and Friedland make clear, Taliesin deserves to rank among Wright's most brilliant creations as an ingenious ploy to keep his practice afloat and his expensive lifestyle from flagging.The apprentices, who paid the equivalent of a college tuition each year, were put quickly to work serving meals and farming — doing everything, that is, but sitting down for lectures on organic architecture or the Usonian house. The same was true once a satellite campus was established in the Arizona desert and Wright began spending winters there.

[HT: 2Blowhards ]