TALIESIN WEST

2024 NEW YORK TIMES HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE PICK

Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and desert laboratory is a National Historic Landmark and 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 compound of buildings that complements the cactus-studded environs and mountain backdrop 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 palo verde trees and coyotes, the visitor finds an oasis of sparkling pools and low-slung modern 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 an organic masterpiece from the elements of the earth.

Begun in 1937, the compound 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.

Taliesin West: At Home with Frank Lloyd Wright explores the life within 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.

Nora Burba Trulsson is an Arizona-based architecture, design, and travel writer, whose books include Desert Southwest and Living Homes: Sustainable Architecture and Design. Andrew Pielage is an internationally published architectural and travel photographer on a mission to photograph all remaining Frank Lloyd Wright designs. Stuart Graff is president and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.