The residence is simple in the same way the tide is; the way different tones ringing in harmony are. It doesnât need to be understood to be appreciated, and, in fact, itâs often better when itâs not overthought. Some might say that Taliesin flows, but after spending time in the residence, I donât necessarily believe thatâs true.
For me, the home is much more riverbed than river. It provides shape to motion, but itâs the people who are the stream. Walking through Taliesin was easy, mostly because the home directs where you should go and how you should move. The view, for example, is often better when you sit down. I noticed it first at the small wooden desk in my guest room, then later in the living room, and again in the architectâs bedroom. Almost without thought, visitors are compelled to take a seat the same way water bends at a meander.
But if the home is the river, Wright is gravity, erosion, and every other force or phenomenon that forms the earthâs waterways. His auteurship is tangible everywhere. You admire the view he thought was best. The living room feels big, partly because it is and partly because the hallway that leads to it is cramped and dark. He did this often, strategically placing less-friendly spaces directly before those that were meant to be grand. He called this compression and release. There are obstaclesâlike a large stone fireplace, wood railings, or furnitureâthat force people to take specific paths.
You can find similar situations in many of Wrightâs works. Take the Guggenheim, for example, which only offers one primary route via its spiraling white ramp. Or even the homes he designed for clients, which more often than not included built-in furnitureâeven if you wanted to rearrange things, you couldnât. I donât live in Wrightâs work, so I canât faithfully say whether this guiding hand is helpful or overbearingâitâs been argued both waysâbut for a weekend spent trying to better understand the architect, there couldnât have been a better lesson. After all, the moments when you feel most uncomfortable are in the places that lack everything Wright held dear: light, space, and a connection to The Valley of the God-Almighty Joneses.
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In Wisconsin among Wright zealots, we talked about the architectâs clear intuition for sustainable design long before the term was commonplace, how he had a much more gifted engineering mind than most give him credit for, and the way his ideas still influence American houses today. When I was back home, conversations often turned to his reputation. âWasnât he kind of a mean guy?â friends would ask. Or if we did discuss his buildings, âDidnât his roofs leak?â
Wright wasnât all good or all bad (Iâve been told firsthand stories of his compassion and read many reports of his temper and ego), but itâs no use pretending his more salacious leanings arenât what many connect to him. Recounting my trip made it clearer than ever that many see a difference between Wright the architect and Wright the man. One famous, one infamous, each made more relevant by the other. And in many ways, Taliesin is where these two polarities mingle.
