SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — This weekend you can visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and desert laboratory located in Scottsdale, Arizona, for a discount thanks to their Discovery Day. This only happens twice a year.
You can visit Taliesin West on Dec. 9, 2023. It's $5 for an adult ticket and kids are free. You will need to reserve a time slot in advance on their website, franklloydwright.org/discovery-days.
The property was created by Wright and his apprentices in the late 1930s. Many wonder where the name Taliesin came from.
“Taliesin was the name of his home in Wisconsin it means shining brow in Welsh,” shared Niki Stewart, Vice President and Chief Learning and Engaging Officer at Taliesin West. “When he talks about where to build your house he wants to put it in the perfect spot, not on the top of the hill, or at the bottom, but right on the brow of the hill, the shinning brow,” added Stewart.
Wright’s winter home and desert laboratory sits along the foothills of the McDowell Mountains and resides in harmony with the Sonoran Desert. The architectural icon pulled inspiration from his surroundings and used local materials to construct it.
During Wright’s time he would bring apprentices to Arizona where they would experiment, learn, and design. To this day, the Taliesin Institute and Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation continue Wright’s mission of giving everyone access to education.
“There’s a lot of lessons here about how to live in harmony with nature, and how to deal with living in extreme environments,” said Jennifer Gray, Vice President and Director of Taliesin Institute.
The Taliesin Institute partners with schools, scholars, and design professionals to continue education on the property and across the globe.
“We had a group of students build some desert masonry while they were here in March and it was interesting to see how long it took fifteen of them to build this small little bench and imagine the apprentices built this entire place,” said Gray.
The property has many Native American and Asian influences.
This year marked a major anniversary for one of Wright’s projects. Members of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation traveled to Japan in October 2023 as part of the 100-year celebration of Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel which Wright designed.
“Arguably you could say Wright was one of the first global architects that truly practiced on an international scale,” said Gray.
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The Imperial Hotel was demolished in the 1960’s, but the lobby was preserved, dismantled, and relocated to a museum village in Japan. The Foundation and Taliesin Institute spent years working alongside Japanese curators to mark the centennial with an exhibition in Toyota City.
“Exhibitions are a way of preserving his legacy too. It’s not always preserving the building but also ideas and carrying them forward,” shared Gray.
The work to preserve Wright’s creations and ideas continues across the world and in Arizona.
“We’ve got some preservation projects going on too, perhaps bring back the textile roofs,” said Gray. She shared that originally the roofs were canvas and the property had more of a camp feel.
If you’re visiting Taliesin West for the first time, or you just haven’t been in a while, there is something for everyone.
You can check out Nightfall Guided Tours where you can enjoy the property during dusk.
They’ve also started offering “Shelters in the Desert” guided tours where you can explore the ground, hike the trails on the property and see where many of Wright’s apprentices lived.
You can watch a movie on certain Fridays in The Cabaret. You can reserve a ticket to watch White Christmas on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.
There’s also events that offer sunset cocktails, yoga, lectures, and events for kids. You can find all the details on their website.
The Foundation said most of their visitors are from out of state, so this is a great reminder to Rediscover Arizona and what State 48 has to offer.
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