Visit to Taliesin West

[pegkerr]

Yesterday, I went with some members of the family to tour Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture school Taliesin West. They use it six months out of the year, Oct-March; otherwise they are in Wisconsin. About thirty students are studying there now. My brother-in-law Lance's family is very interested in Frank Lloyd Wright, and they brought some books along that I paged through on the car trip there (my niece is thinking of becoming an architect). I took some notes on one of the books, which I plan to add to my research file. What they talked about as one of FLW's greatest contributions to 20th century architecture (sensitivity to the demands of the site to the design) was certainly something that Frank Anderson was talking about in terms of designing the ice palace.

I have to give a great deal of thought to what my ice palace will be like. What will that mean magically?

I went along, of course, for the book. I had thought Solveig would be particularly interested in the Arts and Craft school, and to a lesser extent, Wright.

Something that may prove useful: They had for sale in the gift shop several items with Frank Lloyd Wright's "Organic Commandment" which I had never encountered before. They had it on a paper weight and a T-shirt; I was cheap and bought it on a notecard, which I will hang over my desk:

Love is the the Virtue of the Heart
Sincerity the Virtue of the Mind
Courage the Virtue of the Soul
Decision is the Virtue of the Will
Could I use that somehow in the book, as an organizing principle? Solveig does whatever she has to do by drawing upon both her expertise as an architect, and winter magic. Is this related? I've talked about the heart of flesh/heart of stone business. Heart is there as an issue for both of them. Jack has to move toward Sincerity, and Solveig, I think, toward Courage. I'm interested in having (as pamealdean said in Tam Lin about the characters in The Lady's Not for Burning) the hero and heroine save each other.

What would Decision be? What would it have to do with what's going on with the magical system, and with Rolf?

I wonder if Kelsey (my niece) might be interested in trying to design an ice palace for me. She just took an architecture drafting class, after all. Will talk to her about it.

Peg

Comments

[siriologist.livejournal.com]

I was there a couple of years ago and got a mug with that Commandment on it. I love everything about it. Talesin West was very cool as I'm a big fan of the Arts and Crafts style. I'd *love* to have a Bungalow style house furnished in mission or Arts and Crafts style furnishings. That's my dream retirement house in a college town near some mountains.

I Love the idea of incorporating these themes into any plotline and I know you could do a bang up job, and I love the idea that the hero and heroine save each other. Much more interesting than if one or the other is the sole savior.

PS Didn't excersise today as the cold and congestion was back in full measure. I took a full dose of Nyquil last night and still woke up at 2,3,4,and 5 before getting up at 7 with a pounding nauseous headache. I'm very glad I don't have to entertain or go anywhere today.

Ice Palace

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in the fact that Frank Lloyd Wright was considering building a skyscraper in New York that could best be described as an "ice palace." It was at the behest of a very liberal New York Episcopal priest (a really left-wing guy for the twenties--he was an advocate of liturgical dance, among other fairly bohemian worship ideas) but never built. If it had been, it would have been the tallest building in NYC at the time. It was meant to be a sort of glass cathedral.

Something he did at the end of his life (1959, same year as the Guggenheim) that was very similar to this (or at least harked back to this never-built project) is Temple Beth Sholom, a synagogue in Elkins Park, PA (just north of Philadelphia). I wrote a long paper on this for my architectural history class, in addition to a paper on all of Wright's houses of worship (he did quite a few). Anyway, TBS has a roof constructed of opaque plastic panels which filter and diffuse the light coming into the synagogue during the day and which make the building look like a glowing lantern when lit within at night. It's an amazing space, although the congregation didn't manage to get the roof to stop leaking until the 1980s. (His design was way ahead of the technology for actually executing it.)

One of Wright's biggest influences was Japanese architecture (his design for a hotel in Tokyo withstood the 1923 earthquake there but was later--Grrr!--torn down). I would recommend reading whatever you can about Japanese architecture as well as Wright's philosophy of organic design. I have a lot of architecturally-related quotes at the beginnings of my Triangle Prophey chapters, many of them from the writings of Witold Rybcynski (an architecture prof at Penn). I can highly recommend anything he's written about architecture, even to a layperson. He has a clean, conversational style and doesn't assume that you've read all of the fat architectural history tomes; when he brings up big names like Pevsner and Zevi, he explains their theories in a nutshell, so you don't have to go looking them up for yourself.

Funny that your novel is requiring you to do this sort of research; mine is requiring me to read up on wolves in the Flathead National Forest of Wyoming, sheep farming techniques and raising Irish Wolfhounds. It's actually a nice change of pace for me after being in immersed in architecture so much of the time!

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I had to come back and make note of the "Organic commandment". Very powerful, thank you.

[diony.livejournal.com]

I visited Taliesen West a few years ago and was very struck by it; I've never been interested in architecture but there was something about that place that made me want to study it.

In case it's useful to you, I was looking for pictures of FLW's stuff and stumbled across: The International Architecture Database, which looks pretty cool.