Following the shocking news about the impending closure of Frank Lloyd Wright's School of Architecture at Taliesin, and the subsequent conversation we released on our podcast, with individuals closely connected with the school, the student body has broken their silence and shared with us a statement.
“It is not enough to leave behind you monuments of buildings, you owe it to future generations to leave monuments of human beings” - Olgivanna Lloyd Wright
The imminent closure of the School of Architecture at Taliesin has left its student body stunned and deeply distraught. To discontinue eighty-eight years of an alternative pedagogical model is at least as destructive as the demolition of a physical architectural masterwork. To close this school is to dismantle one of the great visions and traditions of the past century; and to preserve the culture that sustains a built environment such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin is equivalent in importance to any material evidence of history. A building is merely a shell if void of those who keep its legacy alive.
Beyond losing our school we are losing our home, our deeply interwoven community, and the chance to pursue our education at a truly unique, experimental institution: a platform designed to express pedagogy as a way of life. As graduate students in the year 2020, we have been incredibly fortunate to experience an education which transcends the classroom. At the School of Architecture at Taliesin, we live in shelters in the Sonoran Desert built by our colleagues and predecessors. We wake with the sun beaming over the mountain and the choir of the quails. We cook meals for each other, enjoying the bonds of communal living which have united humans throughout history and which are increasingly rare in our culture today. On the same day that we might troubleshoot a 3D printer, we troubleshoot fires to keep warm at night. The experience of living fundamentally with nature and with each other, literally building the roofs over our own heads while learning current software and design methodologies, is profound and represents what it means to be a student here. This community of Taliesin students, along with our esteemed Fellows and alumni, are the living embodiment of a legacy.
Designing an architectural education as a holistic approach to life was part of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fellowship from its inception, and is the way he and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, who played a coequal role in the development of the Fellowship, intended for the legacy to be maintained. From the beginning of the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932, “the apprentices participated in the construction, operation, and maintenance of the school, including raising the food which sustained them.”1 The notion that the Taliesin campuses would cease to be a training ground for future architects is antithetical to the ethos of the Wrights’ creation. It would be a powerful loss not only to their legacy, but to the future of the profession itself. The philosophy of “learning by doing” is as consequential as ever, in an era in which architectural theory and practical knowledge are increasingly divorced. The education at the School of Architecture at Taliesin bridges this critical gap.
From our perspective, the destruction of this profound legacy and jewel in the American cultural landscape is a preventable disaster. The end of this great institution is not a foregone conclusion, and we feel the results of this outcome do not reflect the best interests of the school, its students and faculty, and the vision of Frank Lloyd Wright.
We are exceedingly grateful to all of the individuals and institutions who have reached out to extend their support and offers of opportunity moving forward, and we look forward to new relationships blossoming as a result of this tragic fissure. However, we feel that there is no replacement for what will be lost in closing the School of Architecture at Taliesin, and no other experience that replicates what we sought in coming here. We have made this educational investment in order to earn our Master of Architecture degrees, and a solution which does not include the conference of accredited degrees, such as staying at Taliesin through a non-accredited program, is no solution at all. The alternative transition to finish our degrees elsewhere is not only disruptive to the fabric of our lives as individuals and as a community, but deprives many of us of the opportunity to realize the education in which we have invested so deeply.
The School of Architecture at Taliesin is a seed, planted in a living soil: this is the unique condition that generates visionary architects, with sustainable ethics and sensibilities. We feel a deep calling to speak on behalf of not only ourselves, but of the many people who have built this community over past generations and who continue to embody its ideals of operating collectively, locally, and intelligently to support one another. In Wright’s own sentiments “[people] derive countenance and sustenance from the ‘atmosphere’ of the things they live in or with. They are rooted in them just as a plant is in the soil.”2 If this community and great tradition were to be uprooted, it is not only the constituents of the school who will suffer, but the idealism and altruism that are woven into one of Wright’s most outstanding creations.
1 The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture: An Overview (1987), 5.
2 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Integrity: In a House as in an Individual,” The Natural House, vol. 2 (1954), 135.
11 Comments
Cogent and moving. Thank you students for your strong, unified voice.
“Replacing window that had blown away.” Typical FLW design, artsy with no engineering input. Don’t get me wrong, I love all FLW work and have been following it since 1960s.
Take a page from the devil's book and cease to exist.
My reply above was to a troll comment that was deleted.
The Japanese house was not built by Frank Loyd Wright but by one of his students.
I looked to see when it was completed but couldn’t find any information, however they started building out there in the late 1930s.
There’s very few structures that could stand in the desert for over 80 years without having some material failure problems. Especially when you consider the types of materials available 80 years ago.
If you have access to Facebook there is a post By the student who was doing the restoration apparently it had been empty for sometime.
https://m.facebook.com/fllwfou...
You keep saying imagine. Why do I have to imagine? Are there no examples you could provide?
Some of his private homes and commercial buildings have been standing for over 100 years. No building stands for 100 years without needing maintenance. And in 100 years there’s been phenomenal advancements in building materials technology. The most common complaint I’ve heard was that his flat roofs often developed leaks. Considering the flat roofing material he had to work with was probably tar and pea-gravel is that really surprising?
Must've hit a nerve, considering I graduated to insulting nickname status the day you signed up. You've graduated too, little fella. Welcome to my ignore list.
Frank Lloyd Wright and myself would have worked side by side if we lived during same time. I have apx. 60 of his books. I been in the construction business for over 30 years. I draw and design projects, I am a job site Superintendent and also a Master Carpenter, my mind never stops. Frank Lloyd Wright was one of a kind.
humble too.
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