Hi, I'm James. And I'm Laurent. And today, we are in Scottsdale, AZ. And I'm so excited,
because we are visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece in the desert: Taliesin West.
We are huge Frank Lloyd Wright's fans, and we visited a lot of his places in the Midwest:
in Chicago and Michigan. And we're so happy to be here in Arizona, to visit Taliesin West.
Taliesin West is a truly experimental architecture, in a completely new environment,
that Frank Lloyd Wright really crafted, over many, many years. And it's fascinating,
to go there, and to see how this experiment in the desert, kind of evolved. At first,
I didn't really care for Taliesin West. When I think of Frank Lloyd Wright,
I think of just horizontal lines. And I thought Taliesin West was a bit of a
hodgepodge of a bunch of different things. It just didn't have the unity that most of Frank
Lloyd Wright's buildings have. But it kind of grew on me, as we progressed through the visit.
So, we visited the original Taliesin, in Wisconsin. And it's the first time that
we saw a Frank Lloyd Wright building, in a hot climate, like in the desert. And it just felt
very different. It was a lot more open, with just a lot more outdoor space, than what we're
used to seeing, from his constructions in the Midwest. The other thing that's really amazing,
is how he bought 600 acres of land, and used all of the things that were available on the land.
And the manufacturing of the components of the house: the timber, the rocks, all those things,
were blended together, in creating this really unique space. Yeah! He didn't believe in bringing
material from outside. So, he just used the material that was there. And just all the
rocks from the desert is what he used, to create what is called the desert masonry.
So, Frank Lloyd Wright thought of the space as a whole. He designed the space,
but he also designed the furniture that went into the space. And his interiors
are always integrated. So, you'll see a lot of banquettes, for a lot of seating,
for dinner parties and things like that. And what's particularly incredible to see here,
are the original origami chairs that he designed. These are really incredibly comfortable chairs to
sit in, and aesthetically just beautiful. I was so happy to be able to sit in that chair.
One of the things I found very unique about Taliesin West, is that, when I think of Frank
Lloyd Wright, I think mostly rectangles, and horizontal and vertical lines. And there,
there were a lot of triangles, and a lot of diagonals, throughout the whole property,
which is something that I just don't associate with a Frank Lloyd Wright in general.
So, Taliesin West is a late work from Frank Lloyd Wright. He lived there from about 1937, until
the time he died in 1959. It was, and still is really, the campus of his School of Architecture.
Every year, Frank Lloyd Wright and his students would migrate, between Taliesin, WI in the summer,
and Taliesin West, AZ in the winter. And they used to drive in this red Caravan, because Frank Lloyd
Wright really loved the color red. And he had his car painted red, so that people would know
he was coming into town. So, all his students decided to paint their car in red as well.
There's actually a lot of water around the property. There are pools with fountains.
When Frank Lloyd Wright bought the land, he also bought the water rights. And everybody
was laughing at him, because he was in the middle of the desert. And it turns out that
there was a spring on his property. And that's why there's so much water around the property.
One of the things that was interesting about the rock formations, were that,
there were a number of Native American petroglyphs in the area. And these kind
of inspired Frank Lloyd Wright's vision, for what the symbolism would be on the property.
So, you'll see that the symbol, which is kind of this spiral symbol,
was similar to what was found on the rocks. And he turned that into the symbol of Taliesin West.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed the building. But he also organized all the art that's
around. And there's just a lot of statues and motifs, that are blended throughout
the site. He collected a lot of Chinese art. In fact, he was one of the largest
collectors of that Chinese art in the US. And he placed a lot of it there.
Frank Lloyd Wright wants his students to be also businesspeople. And therefore,
he cares a lot about educating them, not just on architecture, but also on music,
and on the arts in general. So that they can entertain their potential clients.
So, he created the music pavilion. And then, in addition to that, there's also
the cabaret theater. And supposedly, the acoustics in that room, are just amazing.
One of the things, that I think is really special about the music pavilion, is the
filtered light. From the canvas, that lines the ceiling. You know, we're in the desert,
and you're directly in the sun. But there is just beautiful filtered light,
through these canvases he created, that makes it so pleasant to be in the music pavilion.
So, we hope you enjoy this video. If you did, give it a big thumbs up. And put your comments,
in the comment section below. And if you want to subscribe to our channel, we are gonna put a link
right here. And be sure to click the bell, if you want to get regular updates about our new videos.
If you don't click it, then you won't see our new posts. And if you want to watch our next video,
we're going to put one right here, over James' face, and another one right there, over my face.
Bye! Bye!