Inside Taliesin West

A few weeks ago I showed you pictures from my trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Arizona. In that post I promised pictures of the interior in a later post, but then I forgot. Well, better late than never! These pictures are all poached (but they are properly sourced of course) because no interior pictures were allowed.

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This is the main living area. It is quite large because he lived there with his family, his architecture students, and frequent guests. The seating and the outer walls are all very low to the ground. Frank Lloyd Wright was only 5'6" so he designed all his furniture and doorways to be the right size for him because he felt like his height was the perfect height (as a person that is also 5'6" I felt perfectly comfortable there!). You can see in the last picture how low the ceilings are, imagine if that man in black on the far left actually stood up... there were a lot average height men feeling pretty good about themselves there!

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Frank Lloyd Wright was the originator of the open floor plan. He liked to have big parties where everyone could be in the same room all doing the same thing or off in little groupings.

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These pendant groupings were everywhere and I loved them! Such a cool look and I don't think it would be too terribly hard to pull off in your own home.

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It's hard to tell from the pictures but the "ceiling" is actually just canvas pulled over beams. It is a very tent like atmosphere. He built gutters inside so that rain water wouldn't ruin the carpet. Two things I loved in this room were the animal skins everywhere (animal skins may be the theme of my blog this week) and these round rattan stools (it's like where's Waldo, but you can find them above if you look hard enough).

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I love the stone walls with wooden beams and shelves.

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This is his office. I love the table with the plant in the middle, he had several of these throughout the house.

Overall this house is kind of a hot mess, but a very cool well designed hot mess. Because he was using his own money and not being paid for his time he used what was available to him and added on when he could... the overall look is pretty hodge podge, but his design aesthetic still comes through pretty clearly. It is definitely and ode to the organic Arizona landscape. What I love about this home is that he lived there and so it more truly reflects on him as a person than his commissioned homes. Most designers design a specific way for clients but in their own homes they are more likely to do things they wouldn't do for a client. I really enjoyed this tour and if you are in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area I totally recommend it and don't worry I didn't ruin the tour showing you all these pictures. There is way more that I didn't show and plus everything always looks different in person.