Taliesin

[Brian Runau]

My wife and I had our first week out of town after 1-1/2 years hunkered down at home. One of the stops was Frank Loyd Wright's home in Wisconsin. I was familiar with a lot of his early work using darker oak, leaded glass windows etc... and we had seen Taliesin west a few years back. Walking though the home in WS he used plywood as a major construction material. No stain. Guide said it was a fairly new material and he wanted to experiment with it. Since it was in the country all the windows are clear glass so you can see the landscape outside. Just a departure from his early work and what he may be more known for. Brian

[Randy Heinemann]

Great place to visit. I've been there a couple of times. I hope they were able to make the necessary decisions for some of the restoration and have completed it since I last saw. It was literally going downhill on one side.

[Brian Runau]

Great place to visit. I've been there a couple of times. I hope they were able to make the necessary decisions for some of the restoration and have completed it since I last saw. It was literally going downhill on one side.

The front stair, 3-4 sections of treads are falling down and back due to erosion and there was one part, in the student section I think, that a small section of wall was being reinforced with railroad ties. Looks like they did add drainage to carry the water away, but without gutters there must be a lot of it to move. I assume they built walls to hold up the hillside and did not know at the time about the drainage & freeze thaw effect of water behind the walls. Just thought it was cool all the finished were plywood unstained. Brian

[Mel Fulks]

Plenty of advice was given about improvements ,but Wright was not much of a listener. That’s the problem with geniuses.

[Frederick Skelly]

Plenty of advice was given about improvements ,but Wright was not much of a listener. That’s the problem with geniuses.

Wright blazed a lot of trails, and that always carries some risk. There was a major flaw in Fallingwater that required an extensive fix a few years ago. But I sure think architecture would be a poorer place without his work.

[Jim Becker]

Wright blazed a lot of trails, and that always carries some risk. There was a major flaw in Fallingwater that required an extensive fix a few years ago. But I sure think architecture would be a poorer place without his work.
Very true. Wright's designs were visually amazing, but there were certainly some engineering issues, too. Fallingwater is probably one of the best known of those and had extensive (and expensive) mitigation not been done awhile back, the structure would probably be "one with the creek" it sits above. When I visited, it was before they completed all that work and there were some things that brought out the "hairy eyeball" on my, although I cannot recollect the specifics at this time.

[Bill Dufour]

Does the roof leak? Pretty much all his later work has roof issues.
Bill D

[Richard Coers]

He was a trail blazing architect, but a horrible structural engineer. The May House in Grand Rapids, MI has an entire steel structure added in the attic to carry the roof and cantilevers now, Falling Water had major issues with cantilevered concrete, and his home and studio in Oak Park had some major structural issues as well. I've visited Taliesin, May House, Oak Park home and studio, and many visits to the Dana Thomas home in Springfield, IL

[Steve Rozmiarek]

ahh, the FLW boo birds are out. He was at the leading edge of structural engineering's understanding of materials of the times limitations. I live in a 1918 house, period correct for his early era, and it definitely has issues too even though it is very much so more conservative than FLW work. Even at that early construction date, my house has FLW inspired details. His work is so inspirational that po-pooing his entire life work for issues on a few 100 plus year old essentially show houses, is just ridiculous. These old houses that turn into museums are probably all purchased or given to the museums in a poor state to begin with. Museums obviously need to fund raise, so yep it needs a really expensive new roof or whatever. Run an endowment that manages a FLW estate house? You have the easiest job in the world, just say your house has the same issue as this other FLW house, and instant funding opportunity. Add his millions of inspired by houses to the pool and he begins to look even more so like a genius.

I saw one detractor even bemoaning the poor climate control system planning in one of his larger buildings, that was built in the late 20's. Commercially available AC wasn't even around until the 30's, and then was so expensive that it wasn't until after FLW died in the late 50's that it even started to became widely used.

As a builder, I'd sure rather build FLW houses than the crap we get asked to today.

[Frederick Skelly]

His work is so inspirational that po-pooing his entire life work for issues on a few 100 plus year old essentially show houses, is just ridiculous.

You'll laugh, but his stuff is so cutting edge that it never dawned on me - until you said it - that his early work is that old. Even Fallingwater was begun in 1936 - 85 years ago.

[Richard Coers]

Commercially available AC wasn't even around until the 30's, and then was so expensive that it wasn't until after FLW died in the late 50's that it even started to became widely used.

As a builder, I'd sure rather build FLW houses than the crap we get asked to today.

Better check your history on AC. 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis brought commercial air conditioning to the American public– the Missouri State Building was the first public building to use mechanical refrigeration for cooling. Commercial air conditioning then made its way into other public facilities such as the theaters of the 1920s.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Better check your history on AC. 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis brought commercial air conditioning to the American public– the Missouri State Building was the first public building to use mechanical refrigeration for cooling. Commercial air conditioning then made its way into other public facilities such as the theaters of the 1920s.

Not really, it wasn't common until the 50's. Yes there were a few prior, some car companies actually tried it in the late 30s, but widespread use was much later. Point is, faulting the architect for not taking into account a budding technology is silly. It's like criticizing all those who speced cat 5 networks in their houses not that long ago for not expecting wireless to work out.