Volume 17, Number 11 Thursday, March 22, 2001 The Wright Connection by Maggie Beyer Frank Lloyd Wright’s . .Viewed from the Valley of the Sun Indiana Connection came to Michigan City two years ago when Barbara Stodola capped her crown of achievements as exec- utive director of the John G. Blank Center for the Arts with a major exhi- bition of work by the famed architect and his colleagues. The ripple of interest in Wright’s way of architectural design that always sends its cur- rents through the beach community when the Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s drafting workshop and home rises from the Sonoran desert on 600 acres at the base of the McDowell Mountains twenty-six miles northwest of Phoenix. The architect came to the area in 1928 Long Beach credits of when he was consulting on the building of the Arizona Biltmore calling his first tent camp, Ocotillo, to house his son, John Lloyd draftsman. Building began on Taliesin West in 1937. Wright, is discussed, became a tsunami wave that year as people came by the thousands and scholars of Frank Lloyd Wright’s worldwide influence on architecture gathered to discuss his methods and designs. Barbara has resigned from the Arts Center to teach — about Frank Lloyd Wright (why not!) — and her many years at the Center of the Arts will live on as years that brought the best and brightest of the art world to our area. The stories your writer did that year of 1999 about Frank Lloyd Wright’s Indiana Connection were some of the most intriguing I had ever approached. It was a natural then, that on a recent visit to Phoenix, I would include an Elderhostel about its art and archi- tecture, focused on Taliesin West, the Frank Lloyd Wright school for architects, and Arcosanti, Wright landscaped Taliesin West with native plants like cholla, staghorn and Paolo Solari’s vision of an urban environment saguaro cacti. He initiated his use of desert masonry gathering nearby rocks and placing them in wood forms with flat stones facing out and boulders in the center of the future. So here goes another story (or for fill. Concrete was poured into the forms to fill the gaps with the forms removed two), bringing another connection of Frank when the concrete dried. Lloyd Wright to Indiana. Wright Continued on Page 2 Page 2 March 22, 2001 911 Franklin Street • Michigan City, IN 46360 219/879-0088 • FAX 219/879-8070 In Case Of Emergency, Dial e-mail: News/Articles - [email protected] email: Classifieds - [email protected] http://www.bbpnet.com/Beacher/ Published and Printed by THE BEACHER BUSINESS PRINTERS 911 Delivered weekly, free of charge to Birch Tree Farms, Duneland Beach, Grand Beach, Hidden Shores, Long Beach, Michiana Shores, Michiana MI and Shoreland Hills. The Beacher is also Subscription Rates delivered to public places in Michigan City, New Buffalo, LaPorte and Sheridan Beach. 1 year $26 6 months $14 3 months $8 1 month $3 Wright Continued from Page 1 An architect from Sweden, now with his office in Scottsdale, Jorgen Trulsson would be our guide and teacher in discussing the work of Frank Lloyd Wright in Phoenix including Taliesin West, several homes, First Christian Church and the Grady Grammage Auditorium. Jorgen would give us the viewpoint, not only of an architect, but of a student of Frank Lloyd Wright since he received his Masters degree in Organic Architecture from the school at Taliesin West in 1991 remaining as a staff member until 1993. One of the most respected architectural schools in the world, students at Taliesin West have the unique experience of not only learning, but also of living in structures they create. Architect Jorgen Trulsson, once a student at Taliesin West, begins our tour at the entrance. The interns start out in a tent just as students did when Frank Lloyd Wright first opened Taliesin West in 1937. They move on to other quarters, about 900 square feet in all, that they can customize and incor- porate the principles of architecture they are learn- ing.. Jorgen Trulsson paneled his space completely in wood that he planed, stained and painfully put up, board by board. Sometimes the materials used come from odd and far-off resources: one has colored glass left over from the con- struction of a Hong Kong airport. Special Saturdays in Phoenix offer a tour of these student-designed shelters that include one structure of sand-blasted stone and glass, with fireplace and Oriental rugs that inspires visitors to ask about its availability for rentals. Another is a “living bridge” spanning a desert gully, featuring a 1,100-watt solar panel with glass walls providing panoramic views of the desert with one that folds down to become a drafting table. At Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright felt that a total living experience would be part of learning. Black tie dinners were In the home where Wright lived at Taliesin West, the living room and garden the rule for Sunday night, music and room are now used for Wright Fellowship events. March 22, 2001 Page 3 Open ‘til 7 p.m. Evenings wwwElegant.littlehousef Apparelashions.com for the [email protected] Fashion Conscious Woman Women’s Apparel Coordinates & Dresses Mix & Match 1/2 Price Sale Chairs in the student dining room are based on a design Frank Lloyd Buy one at Regular Price… Wright created for Chicago’s Midway Garden project in 1913. Students help with cooking; Jorgen remembers rolling and shaping 950 Swedish meatballs for one event. Get 2nd at Half Price (Of equal or lesser value) movies following. And Frank Lloyd Wright loved movies. One of his students said he called them his library, collected as he did the art objects, to a form of creative learning about the cultures around the world. In 1950 a cabaret theatre replaced the original din- ing room called the kiva after the half-submerged cham- bers used by Pueblo Indians. Later the Pavilion begun in 1954 would offer annual performances of music and dance performances for visiting artists, carried on by his wife, Olgivanna. Stories and gossip, often juicy, followed Frank Lloyd Wright throughout his life, and Olgivanna squeezed out more after his death. Students found her autocratic and temperamental, kinder, gentler words than Medusa of the mesa, lady with a whip, and other titles of that ilk that could more aptly describe their feelings, according to our leader Jorgen Trulsson. Wright Continued on Page 4 ALL WINTER CLEARANCE ITEMS Take another 50% off the last sale Price! Meet Us For Lunch And A Style Show THURSDAY, MARCH 22 - ROSKOE’S. LA PORTE WEDNESDAY. MARCH 28 - HANNAH’S, NEW BUFFALO 409 Alexander Street LaPorte, IN 326-8602 On Hwy 35 - 5 Blocks South of Lincolnway In the Music Pavilion, a side wall recreates the puppet theatre for Turn Right on Alexander children in his Oak Park home. In front of it, special Monday - Friday 9:30 to 7 Saturday 9:30 to 5 Wright-designed seating for string quartets. THE Page 4 March 22, 2001 Wright Continued from Page 3 As Frank Lloyd Wright’s autobiography in wood and stone, a counterpoint of space within space like the music he loved, he himself dipped into poetry to christen Taliesin West, condensing Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Universe” in these words engraved on a concrete slab at its entrance:. And thou, America Thou too suroundest all, Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, thou too By pathways broad and new, approach the ideal. The measured faith of other lands, The grandeurs of the past, are not for thee, But grandeurs of thine own, Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, compre- hending all, All in all to all. Give me, O God, to sing that thought, Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith, in this, Whatever else withheld withhold not from us. Belief in plan of thee enclosed in time and space. Legendary wonder that he is, another fact of won- Taliesin West, his son, John Lloyd Wright, is quot- der is that Frank Lloyd Wright was seventy when he ed as saying that this viewpoint reduces the impor- began building his home and school in the desert 26 tance of Taliesin and Taliesin West as the landmarks miles from Phoenix. In his 80’s he was still design- of American architecture that they are. His father ing and making plans for new additions to Taliesin is more than “the architect who merely reproduces facts West; in 1959, the year he died at age 91, California’s of life without adding to our compensation of it — with- San Marin County Civic Center and New York’s out supporting it by all the weight of his spiritual expe- Guggenheim museum were both built. rience — love, tenderness, joy.” Architect Philip Critics sometimes said that his constant building Johnson said: “At Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright and remodeling of the two Taliesins was his use of made the most intriguingly complex series of turns, them as mere labratories for experimenting with twists, low tunnels, surprise views, framed land- ideas before presenting them to clients. But in scapes, that human imagination could achieves. My Kathryn Smith’s definitive book about Taliesin and friends,” he declared, “That is the essence of architecture.” The Arizona Biltmore hotel is “Wright -inspired” with Frank Lloyd Wright signature in the design of a soaring copper roof for one of its restaurants, a stained glass mural in the lobby. .and water sprites here and there on the lush grounds.