Taliesin West

Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and desert laboratory has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This book, the first of its kind in decades, celebrates that recognition and offers a new look at this world treasure.

An extraordinary house and compound of buildings that complements the cactus-studded environs and rolling hills of the Scottsdale desert in Arizona, Taliesin West is Wright’s ode to desert living and one of his greatest and most visited venues. Here, amidst mesquite trees and scorpions, the visitor finds an oasis of sparkling pools and low-slung modernistic buildings that are uniquely suited to the site—indeed a veritable paradise that seems to have emerged from the wilderness. The expression of profound vision and the product of determination, artistry, and imagination, here Wright brought forth a masterpiece from the elements of the earth.

Begun in 1937, the house served as a place of exploration, a place of work, a place of camaraderie and culture, and a place of living for Wright, for his family, and for the apprentices of the Taliesin Fellowship, who had joined the architect to learn and to work with him side-by-side. A most unusual place and community, Wright’s legacy lives on even today.

The book explores the structures that make up Wright’s desert masterpiece, from Garden Room to Cabaret Theatre, and delves into the many stories that have made the place at once a crucible for creation and a home.