What was Frank Lloyd Wright really like when at his home at Taliesin East? In collaboration with their current exhibition "Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century," the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) presented the lecture "FLW: A Family Legacy" last Thursday afternoon. Thomas Wright, grandson to Frank Lloyd Wright, offered his youthful memories from spending time at Taliesin East in the Spring Green, Wisconsin compound.
His grandfather also built a Hemicycle Home for his own parents in Bethesda, Maryland that is unusual in that it completes the hemicircle, with curved walls to creates an almond shaped house on the interior and exterior. After providing caretaking for his mother after 1993, Thomas Wright purchased the family home and currently lives there with his wife, with a signifcant amount of Wright designed furniture intact. The second half of his informal talk gave his personal thoughts on living in this FLW home along with his views on "Green Architecture," and how FLW used it in his own home and the principles still applied to today's building environment.
Thursday's discussion for the first half hour focused on T. Wright's summers spent at Spring Green during 1949, 1950 and 1951, and then afterwards he responded to the audience by answering several of their questions regarding the time at Taliesin East.
Did you go to Taliesin East to study architecture or to be with your grandfather?
I never wanted to be an architect, and I hated drawing. [T. Wright is a geologist, and his Father, the youngest son of FLW, was a lawyer.] Taliesin East was a self-sufficient commune or a working farm. They raised crops, alfalfa, corn, hay, and animals, cattle, horses, pigs. And we churned our own butter, cream, milk, often with ice cream on the weekends. My summers there included mainly farm work, cooking and cleaning and serving food. And it was an unconventional apprenticeship for the architects who were working there. Several who didn't enjoy working on the farm left within a few weeks, sometimes days. It was a difficult architectural atmosphere. Those who stayed were rewarded. When the fellowship moved to Taliesin West, that was a different experience.
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How was that different?
There was no agriculture at Taliesin West, so the apprentices spent tons of time in the drafting room [instead of farming]. And at Taliesin West, they [the apprentices] built their own dwellings. They had to use the materials that were introduced by the environment. Canvas and stones. Anything you could scrape together to build your own shelter. It was a very unconventional education.
What did you specifically learn from those summers at Spring Green?
I learned to drive, for one thing. First, a tractor, then a truck, then a jeep. My grandfather had a car fetish, and had a lot of early 20th century fancy cars. He bought them or induced his apprentices to buy them, especially MG's. And he had a fleet of the Crosby Hotshot. They were small cars [similar to the size of a smart car] and actually didn't last too long [in the marketplace]. I also learned a lot of difficult things, and it was very hard for me, the farm work, because I was small for my age at the time. I wouldn't mind when it was easier, to weed the herb and vegetable garden. It really was a self-sufficient farm.
What did you do for entertainment?
Picnics were an important part of Taliesin, by the Wisconsin River. Once there were also two ponds and we outfitted a pirate ship and had a pirate party. There was always incredible food and opportunities because the apprentices were from other countries and my grandfather induced them to prepare their special dishes. Saturdays were for these special events, and often began with a dinner eaten in the theater [a building on site]. Then we'd alternate between movie and music [on given weekends]. My grandfather loved John Ford films, Westerns. For the music, he invited every apprentice to join an instrumental group. He liked chamber music, medieval and Renaissance with complex melodies. If an apprentice couldn't play an instrument, he handed him a recorder or flute and told them they needed to learn! We often had recorder concerts.
This is the first of several Q & A's by Thomas Wright, grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright on how his summers were spent at Taliesin East and about living in an actual FLW home constructed for his parents that will be featured throughout the week. Another upcoming lecture hosted by the Milwaukee Art Museum features "Wright in the Teens: A Magical Moment" on April 3 and will be given by Anthony Alofsin, an award winning architect.
