REFUGE
The Shelter Design/Build Program at Taliesin Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture
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PEDAGOGY OF REFUGE
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he school of architecture founded by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1932 has long espoused principles of ecological sensitivity and experiential education. While for decades this aspect has rarely been studied in the numerous historical works and publications about Wright, it is now beginning to attract a wider interest. Partly because amid a momentous environmental consumerism a lot of people seek authentic sources for understanding the issues of sustainability, and partly due to the recent exhibition about Wright at the Guggenheim Museum—particularly the Learning by Doing exhibition that examines the school’s shelter design/build program. It is safe to say that the general public knows little of Wright as a pedagogue and usually considers his architecture a purely personal, if not idiosyncratic, matter. Despite the fact that the exhibit of the shelters casts light on one of the significant activities of students, it does not set it in the context of the evolution of the school itself, something that ultimately brings to the surface more questions than answers about the educational philosophy of Taliesin. The visitor remains a spectator of history instead of becoming active in the questions innate in the material. Before expanding on the shelters as les2
sons of tangible architecture (or nevertheless technique), it is important to seek the notion of refuge in Wright’s tempestuous course after Chicago, which has left its mark on the school. In March of 1911, Wright plans a small cottage for his mother on the slopes of a hill belonging to her Welsh immigrant family alongside the Wisconsin River. Wright had just returned to the U.S. after two years of self-exile in Florence and found his professional career, which flourished in the suburb of Oak Park, already expired. His scandalous flight with the spouse of his client Cheney was inexcusable for the puritan Chicago of 1900. Two months later, in June 1911, the cottage plan becomes the expanded design of Taliesin I, and immediately he will begin its construction, taking his first refuge in the green landscape of un-glaciated and utterly pastoral southwest Wisconsin. After surviving two tragedies that destroyed the residence, with subsequent reconstruction Wright manages to convert his refuge into a fortress and springboard, from which, for the remainder of his life, he will leave us some of the most important designs and texts of architecture. Taliesin is not place of withdrawal but a platform to campaign outwards. It is here where Wright will mount his battle
with the modern movement imported after WWII; a fight he will tirelessly pursue until his death. It is important to note that Wright’s battle with the modern movement is often ironic. Even though he has been a staunch proponent of an organic, indigenous American architecture, his focus remains on his work and his clients. The Taliesin productivity of the past three decades of Wright’s life is striking, with commissions of about 30 projects per year. It is true that the school and committed students participated in this productivity, imbuing the work with youthful creative energy. In the mid 1920s, a few years before the creation of the school, Wright fell in love with the Arizona sunshine through commissions by Alexander Chandler, for whom he designs three major projects. Chandler provided land for a camp in the Sonoran desert that Wright dubbed Ocotillo, where he first experimented with ephemeral lightweight construction. The camp will be the precursor to Taliesin West. In Ocotillo ceilings were made of canvas stretched over simple wooden frames, and its foundations were based on poles that could be removed without leaving traces in the rocky ground.
Within a decade, the school will be established and in 1937 construction of Taliesin West, exclusively with the personal work, effort and sweat of students, will commence. Thus begins the tale of the two Taliesins, between which the school will move twice a year, avoiding the hard Wisconsin winters and the scorching Arizona summers respectively. This trip continues to this day, giving students the opportunity to cross the vast landscapes of the great plains at a distance almost 2,000 miles every spring and autumn. The first desert shelters were simple canvas tents over wooden bases. Inside, a simple bed with a sleeping bag, candles or gas lamps, books, and a flashlight. Other possessions were stored in a small building that had locker rooms and bathrooms. One of the first students who internalized the poetry of habitation in the beautiful desert landscape and studied the shelter as architecture was John Lautner, who later became well known in Los Angeles. Lautner sought simple tectonics that he based on the grammar of Taliesin West, with the iconic rotation of the right angle at 15°. To a simple sleeping area he adds an open canopy where he places his drafting table with views of the McDowell Mountains and the horizon of the Valley of the Sun. This translation of the simple tent
FIRST SHELTER 1937 demolished Desert Shelter John Lautner
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to a miniature-architecture will emerge later as the proving ground for students who are concerned with their own architectural voice. As it is natural, in the decades following we find a distinction between the students who design under the influence of the Master, and those who break away from the architectural vocabulary of Wright to develop their own, personal phraseology. For them the shelter is not only a study in architectural scale, but also a refuge that neutralizes the influence of the doctrine. Interestingly enough, it is Wright himself who prompts his apprentices to not mimic him but to seek their own architecture in the source of “Nature” that he so loved. Consequently, the shelters hold a strong historic role in the development of architecture at Taliesin, particularly post Wright, and even today the old structures pose questions to students. The difference is that today the students do not have to avoid Wright, but what they perceive as ‘fashion” and “trend” in contemporary western models of architecture. Therefore, the experience of wrestling with ideas and maturing through ideology, amid a proliferation of information, prompts students to seek architectural values and take a position toward them.
DESERT PERCH 1999 completed Desert Shelter Victor Sidy
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Two examples of shelters which, by means of overcoming the doctrine, opened fronts to contemporary issues of environment and ecology are those of students Victor Sidy and Chad Cornette, built within two years of each other around 2000. These two designs exemplify the new philosophy as it emerges in the school in regards to experimentation with materials and assemblies. Both shelters were mounted over ruins of old structures so as to not break new desert ground. A lot of the materials are salvaged. In the process of the design, the students sought donors for materials, who were persuaded to support their work. Prefabrication of parts in the school shop minimized construction pollution on site—a particularly critical part of the implementation. Smart assembly details defined the overall aesthetics of the project. Construction depended on minimum assistance from third parties, so that the young architect may realize the scope of intent between design and imple-
mentation of ideas. The building program, although minute, included places of social nature so that the shelters are not confined to just personal use, but with space for social interaction, welcome exchange of ideas and debate. Two years ago, on the initiative of students, a new effort was launched for the construction of shelters at Taliesin in Wisconsin, which were dubbed prairie shelters, to differentiate them from the desert shelters. In order to achieve this initiative, one group of graduate students undertook to prepare the material with which they requested local authorities to issue variances for the building regulations that govern the region of the school, so that these experimental structures are considered legitimate. The procedure gave students the experience of transaction with regulatory bodies that were persuaded to consider experimental construction as a new building category in the region.
serious element in the design and requires more material. Rain and snow, abundant most of the time, require particular attention to waterproofing and live structural loads. Compared with the almost inert desert, the environment in Taliesin is alive and demanding. Consequently the distinct lessons between the two campuses cover a wide range of problem solving and implementation of ideas. The two prairie shelters under construc-
tion are seeking two different architectural adventures. The Prairie Shed by Ryan Hewson is carried out with the 80% of the materials harvested by demolition and recycling of a 1930’s structure, situated at a nearby farm. The design is an architectural study in the morphology of vernacular sheds scattered on the farms of Wisconsin. Ryan studied the cantilever, the structural frame, the torque and bending moment, and sheer wall. In the Leaf Cube, a collaboration between Michael desBarres and Christian Butler, the focus was on digital computations of the Voronoi algorithm as a basis to develop six nonuniform patterns that formed a steel cube anchored on a reinforced concrete base. While there are no two identical polygons
As a start, two shelters were built exploring the new environmental challenges of the northern climate, paving the way for the continuity of a tradition that was limited to the challenges of the desert. The environmental problems in Wisconsin are almost contrary to the southern desert climate. Here the soil is sedimentary and freezes deep. The foundation becomes a
IRONWOOD 2000 completed Desert Shelter Chad Cornette
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in the design, the digital computational power was used in order to minimize the waste of material, and to optimize the position of each segment in the lengths of the steel tube before cutting.
LEAF CUBE 2008 completed
Prairie Shelter Christian Butler w/ Michael DesBarres
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This brings to the surface a current issue in architectural theory, namely the polarization between advances in high technology for digital computation that promote an iconic conception of architecture, and the increasing need for strategic management of building material resources in line with the ecological concerns. Perhaps the gap appears unbridgeable at present, but when new generations of architects have the privilege of the direct link and experience in these issues, supported by an educational philosophy of experimentation, it is sure that we will find the right balance between the virtual reality of electronic design tools and the physical reality of materials which are more and more sought in recycling and sustainable practices.
Even though Wright had strong affinity for the Transcendentalists, elements of the educational philosophy at Taliesin may be traced to William James’ theory of radical empiricism. James, together with Peirce at Harvard, was a pioneer of pragmatism, and he developed the well-known theories of free will and a pluralistic universe. In the mid nineteenth century James concluded that the experience of reality is through direct contact with the correlations of multiple experiences that synthesize a holistic network of memory and stabilize knowledge. This theory, which probably heralded the development of quantum physics, found fertile ground in the purely empirical approach to education at Taliesin. In recent years the evolution of Taliesin’s pedagogy finds sympathetic resonance with the theories of self-determination (competence, autonomy, relatedness) and of reflective practice (stochastic development). Such an educational background offers students a completely alternative course within higher education in architecture that prepares them for the complex professional dynamic on one hand, and for a relentless lifelong learning on the other. Within this context, the shelter is not limited to being the symbolic icon of an architect’s identity but becomes a laboratory of ideas whose aim is not so much creative expression, but the exploration of architectural goals and objectives. Even in cases of error and failure, the student architect learns to live with them, which
ultimately brings awareness to the impact of design decisions on life itself. The multi-faceted notion of refuge asserted by Wright, and consequently by students at Taliesin, remains rich in substance and highly experimental. Although few of the fifteen hundred architects who passed through Taliesin achieved recognition for their own work (Fay Jones, John Lautner, Paolo Soleri, Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler), one must not overlook the fact that the creativity and the commitment they gave to the school is a critical part of its seventy-five year history. Moreover, Wright affectionately called Taliesin a “little experiment” and urged students to find inspiration in his source and not in him. Tradition, when it follows principles rather than form, survives even in difficult and adverse circumstances. This tradition of empirical education of architects at Taliesin is kept alive and relevant.
PRAIRIE SHED 2008 completed Prairie Shelter Ryan Hewson
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