Frank Lloyd Wright Trip, Spring Green, WI

Taliesin Tour, Spring Green, Wisconsin, May 12, 2012

Taliesin Texting Girl, Spring Green, Wisconsin, May 12, 2012

 Wisconsin native artist/architect Frank Lloyd Wright kept his roots deeply planted in his home state throughout his life. Wisconsin held meaning and memories. "I wished to be part of my beloved southern Wisconsin," he wrote in An Autobiography published in 1932. Mired in controversy, he built his home/studio/farm at age 44, Taliesin in Spring Green, as a refuge after practicing architecture in Chicago and traveling for a couple decades. He waxes poetic describing his connection to place:

 "As a boy I had learned to know the ground-plan of the region in every line and feature. For me now its elevation is the modeling of the hills, the weaving and the fabric that clings to them, the look of it all in tender green or covered with snow or in full glow of summer that bursts into the glorious blaze of autumn. I still feel myself as much a part of it as the trees and birds and bees are, and the red barns. Or as the animals are, for that matter." (167)

Far from tranquil, the completed Taliesin attracted melodrama from murder to fire (see Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders by William Drennan, 2007). "Three times built, twice destroyed, yet a place of great repose" (368) wrote Wright.  Undaunted, he did not flee as so many other Wisconsin-born artists had from Liberace to to Georgia O'Keeffe. He remained passionate: "The landscsape itself changes outside the windows as the sea changes, only these valley changes are more immutable than the sea, I think." (370)

Wisconsin embraced Wright with important buildings still preserved including Taliesin in Spring Green, Racine (S.C. Johnson Wax), Wauwatosa (Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church), and residences such as the Bernard Schwartz House in Two Rivers. His legacy lingers on as never built buildings--Monona Terrace--are built and architectural homages appear.

Still the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright may not hold the allure for today's young artist's living in a world of texts and posts though sitting on the ridge of eternity.