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H
I S T O R Y . &
. P E O P L E
Taliesin,
the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture
H
I S T O R I C
.
L E G A C Y
The Frank Lloyd Wright
School of Architecture was formally initiated in 1932 when twenty-three
apprentices came to live and learn at Taliesin. The sources of this educational
philosophy have roots that go back much further than the '30s. The program
of the School, while remaining remarkably true to its heritage, has evolved
through experience and the need to address changing times.
In 1931 Frank and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright circulated a prospectus to an
international group of distinguished scholars, artists, and friends, announcing
their plan to form a school at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin to
"Learn by Doing."
"The fine arts, so called," they asserted, "should stand at the center as inspiration grouped about architecture . . . . (of which landscape and the decorative arts would be a division)." Education at Taliesin would emphasize painting, sculpture, music, drama, and dance "in their places as divisions of architecture."
Each of these elements of the fine arts, as the Wrights conceived them, would lead to broader learning: "Drama would be studied as the essential structure of all great literature;" while "Music would mean the fundamental study of sound and rhythm as an emotional reaction both as to original character and present nature." They anticipated a core faculty, "resident foremen", at Taliesin supplemented by "a guest-system of visitation, consultation and criticism" and faculty from the "nearest university" who would make philosophy and psychology and other disciplines available "by extension work." The "Wisconsin Idea" at the University of Wisconsin conceived of the entire State as a classroom, and the Wrights with close friends at the University proposed to make full use of it.
The students, or “apprentices,” would round out their education
in the spirit of Tolstoy's "What to Do." "The entire work
of feeding and caring for the student body so far as possible should be
done by itself . . . work in the gardens, fields, animal husbandry, laundry,
cooking, cleaning, serving should rotate among the students according
to some plan that would make them all do their bit with each kind of work
at some time."
The ambitious plan for an endowed school exceeded the Wright's capacity
to attract funds in the second full year of the Great Depression. So the
next year, 1932, they issued a more modest circular announcing the formation
of the Taliesin Fellowship and inviting young people to venture
to Taliesin. The Fellowship would organize around the principles they
had articulated in 1931, and the program now called the Frank Lloyd Wright
School of Architecture, has generally evolved along these lines.
But the sources of these ideas go back much further than the early 1930s.
They rested on the Wrights' own experience.
In 1886, Jane and Nell Lloyd-Jones, Frank Lloyd Wright's aunts, founded
the Hillside Home School, a coeducational country boarding school dedicated
to education of children, based on the principle of "Learning by
Doing", a radical departure from most educational practices in those
times. This philosophy made a profound impact on Frank Lloyd Wright, himself
an indifferent student impatient with formal academic requirements and
the rigid educational settings of his youth. After a brief stay at the
University of Wisconsin, he left Madison to learn the profession of architecture
in active Chicago offices. When he opened his own independent practice,
Frank Lloyd Wright strongly supported the traditional training of architects
in the apprentice system which he, himself, had experienced. Apprentice
draftsmen and women always worked in his Oak Park Studio.
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After the closing of the Hillside Home School in 1915, for which he had
designed buildings and the Romeo & Juliet windmill, Frank Lloyd Wright
continually pursued the idea of establishing a school for architects using
the Hillside Home School buildings. By then he had built Taliesin on a
nearby hillside and had taken up residence there. In 1926, he invited
the internationally known architect H. Th. Wijdeveld to join him in establishing
a school. Frank Lloyd Wright had observed educational experiments in the
United States and abroad, and the Arts and Crafts movement had clearly
influenced his thinking. During a visit to Taliesin, after observing the
condition of the Hillside Home School buildings, Wijdeveld declared the
idea impossible to achieve, especially because of the appearance of the
old, abandoned and vandalized Hillside Home School buildings, then unused
for over a decade.
In 1928, Frank Lloyd Wright and his new, dynamic wife, Olgivanna, decided
to repair the damage at Hillside Home School and reopen it as an institution
devoted to architecture and the allied arts. Olgivanna Lloyd Wright encouraged
and broadened her husband's interest in education. The ninth and last
child of an aristocratic Montenegran family, she grew up in a cultural
and stimulating environment. Her mother, a crusading politician, served
as a military leader, setting an example as a woman of accomplishment
and serious purpose. Trained first in a progressive private school where
Olgivanna learned both French and Russian, she eventually came under the
tutelage of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. This charismatic mystic created
the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Fontainebleau,
outside of Paris. Based on his philosophy of spiritual development, Gurdjieff's
school stressed hard work, self-discipline, sacrifices and suffering,
self-awareness, and conscious effort, often through performance. Olgivanna
excelled in music and dance, and she came to the United States ready to
put her learning into practice.
Frank Lloyd Wright readily accepted her ideas and adopted as his own her
stress on the importance of the holistic development of mind, heart, and
body as the essence of an educated person.
The first twenty-three apprentices who formed the Taliesin Fellowship
in 1932 and other pioneers who joined them in the early 1930's included
some remarkably talented men and women. At first, Frank Lloyd Wright had
few commissions through which to teach the apprentices, and he put them
to work in the construction, operations and maintenance of the school.
The apprentices quarried the stone and burned limestone and sifted sand
from the adjacent Wisconsin River to make mortar. They cut trees and sawed
them into dimensional lumber, and along with the masonry, built the large
studio, now on the National Register of Historic Places, that still serves
as the center of learning on the Spring Green campus and as an active
architectural studio. The apprentices worked on all aspects of life at
Taliesin, developing a largely self-sufficient school and community that
operated successfully with a very low budget.
Surrounded by bright, committed and energetic apprentices, Frank Lloyd
Wright's career as an architect found new vigor, and soon the students
could learn as they worked on some of the most innovative buildings in
America. The celebrated master of the Prairie School had expanded his
vocabulary, and apprentices under his direction created renderings, made
models, did the engineering and produced construction drawings. They supervised
construction on projects like the Johnson Wax headquarters (Racine, WI),
Fallingwater (Bear Run, PA) and the first Usonian houses. They did the
first perspectives of the Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY) and
Monona Terrace (Madison, WI). The Taliesin Fellowship
had with astonishing speed developed into an exciting architectural laboratory
which attracted some of the nation's best work and hosted many of the
world's great artists and great minds. In 1940 the Museum of Modern
Art exhibited some of the models made by the students.
In the winter of 1935 Frank and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright moved the entire
Fellowship to Chandler, Arizona, where they constructed the model of Broadacre
City, Frank Lloyd Wright's concept of the integration of living and working
in successfully planned communities. This first winter in Arizona inaugurated
the tradition of moving the School between Wisconsin and Arizona that
still continues. After the first two winters in temporary quarters, he
purchased land in Scottsdale and, in 1937, with the apprentices, began
the construction of a new kind of desert architecture at Taliesin West.
As the work of the architectural office expanded, some of the apprentices
decided to stay at Taliesin, continue their professional development as
practicing architects in Frank Lloyd Wright's "firm," marry
and raise families. Others left Taliesin and began successful careers
in architecture with other firms and on their own. New apprentices replaced
those who left; the talented group who stayed became the Senior Fellowship.
They also became the "resident foremen," the faculty that the
Wrights had envisioned.
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to top
Following a hiatus during World War II when new construction all but ceased
and rationing precluded the cross country excursions between Arizona and
Wisconsin, the demand for Frank Lloyd Wright's services returned in force
and accelerated until his death in 1959. The post-war influx of commissions
reaffirmed the need for permanent members of the Fellowship to produce
architectural work and to mentor the growing number of young men and women
seeking to experience the concepts embodied in organic architecture. During
these exciting years, the fellows and the apprentices worked on more than
100 houses, including the Usonian Automatics and other experiments with
concrete blocks. They also worked on the Guggenheim Museum, the
Price Tower (Bartlesville, OK), the Florida Southern College
campus (Lakeland, FL), the Grady Gammage Auditorium (Tempe, AZ),
the Annunciation Green Orthodox Church (Wauwatosa, WI), several
planned communities (Pleasantville, NY and Kalamazoo, MI) and the expansion
of Taliesin West.
Young men and women could come to Taliesin and get first hand training
working with outstanding architects on some of the nation's most visible
and important projects. With the growing life at Taliesin they would also
participate in music, drama and other fine and performing arts. They interacted
with the constant parade of the world's best minds who came to visit the
Wrights and the Fellowship. When their skills developed and they had sufficient
experience, some would stay and join the Senior Fellowship, but most would
leave, pass the boards and become registered, practicing architects. In
recent years, these former apprentices have organized as the Taliesin
Fellows. They hold reunions, conduct meetings, publish a journal, and,
in 1996, became the official alumni organization of the Frank Lloyd Wright
School of Architecture.
back
to top
After Frank Lloyd Wright's death, the Senior Fellows incorporated an architectural
firm to continue the practice and to mentor the apprentices. These activities
now took place under the umbrella of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
which Frank Lloyd Wright established in 1940 by deeding to it all
of his personal and intellectual property. His will confirmed his gift
to the Foundation, and after 1959 it became the governing entity for all
of the activities at Taliesin with Olgivanna Lloyd Wright serving as its
president until her death in 1985.
As with other professions, the practice of architecture has become increasingly
structured. The American Institute of Architects (AIA), the National Architectural
Accrediting Board (NAAB), the National Council of Architecture Registration
Boards (NCARB), and other organizations which govern the standards of
architectural practice, increasingly required graduation from an accredited
institution of higher education and an accredited architectural program
as a pre-requisite to sit for the Architectural Registration Examination
(ARE). These exams have become the sole gateway to licensure and professional
practice for the majority of the States. In response to this changing
climate, the Foundation stepped forward to formalize the apprenticeship
program into the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. Apprentices,
however talented and well trained, could not become licensed architects
in many states without the approved degree.
The educational program, under the direction of new academic administration
positions, adapted most of the basic tenets of "Learning by Doing"
and the educational philosophy that underlay the Taliesin Fellowship to
the range of institutional characteristics required of an accredited institution
of higher education. The new Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture
expanded academic offerings and experiences, developed a library, added
facilities, and placed the essential elements of student life —
counseling and advising, admissions, and financial aid — on a much
more formal basis. Both campuses, which have earned National Historic
Landmarks status from the National Park Service, now have
many of the elements of a small college. From 1985 until 1996 the School
underwent a rigorous process of reporting towards accreditation, which
was earned successfully at both the Institutional level and the Professional
Architectural level. A School Endowment has been developed and is continuing
to grow. An Alumni association, the Taliesin Fellows, provides graduates
a vibrant professional and personal network.
The basic elements of life, learning, and work at Taliesin have remained
in much the same relationship as they began and evolved under the leadership
of the Wrights. The students continue to learn experientially, augmented
by more formal classes and workshops. The natural landscape and open spaces at both campuses provide settings perfect for studying the relationship between the natural and built environment. The intellectual life of the School
is fostered by the core faculty and enriched by visiting scholars, artists,
and architects from across the globe.
With more than 90 percent of its graduates actively practicing architecture, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture builds upon the foundation of the educational ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright and interprets them within the context of our rapidly-changing world.
To request an application form and receive additional information on the School, click here.
Credit: Dr. H.
Nicholas Muller III, Emeritus President/CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright
Foundation
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