Married to the Ground
From whatever angle you look, the sharp, angular profile of the complex is “almost brutal,” according to Taliesin Fellowship member Arnold Roy, who still lives and works at Taliesin West. “But it absolutely suits the site. The desert is not very welcoming. Everything is sharp. The way these buildings rise up out of the ground is barbaric—the perfect expression of what needs to be at this site.”
Every wall at Taliesin is formed with “desert concrete”— a mixture of sand, soil, and rocks (and even a bit of vegetation) found just yards away from where they now stand. Many of the quartzite rocks were hand-selected and positioned by Wright himself for color and the ancient petroglyphs they display (the petroglyph on one huge rock, called the “Whirling Arrow,” became the inspiration for Wright’s personal logo). Incredibly, the entire sprawling compound was built almost entirely by hand. But then, there were a lot of hands.
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