HISTORIAN’S CORNER: October 26
Taliesin Preservation’s cultural historian Keiran Murphy’s round-up of historical resources.
This photograph was taken right before the Hillside Playhouse opened the first time. The room in view was designed by Wright as a gymnasium. Wright reconfigured the room’s running track into a balcony and had the Taliesin Fellowship build the furniture and sew the seat cushions. This theater was destroyed by an accidental fire in 1952. (Property: Wisconsin Historical Society, #17028.)
TRENDING ONLINE:
The Adler & Sullivan’s Auditorium is first project Wright worked on in that firm. The building has been restored and is still used for events today.
TALIESIN FELLOWSHIP/SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AT TALIESIN
Did you know sculptor Tony Smith was a former Wright apprentice and a practicing architect for a time? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Smith_(sculptor)
FINDS AT TALIESIN:
Below is part of a letter written by Bob [Goodall] to engineer Mendel Glickman describing Halloween festivities, including a party. Glickman worked for many years with Wright at Taliesin and is buried in his family’s cemetery at Unity Chapel.
“You should have been here for our First Anniversary parties, from which the dust is still cleaning away. Tuesday we had a Hallowe’en Party and Wednesday a combination Movie and Barbecue, and I must admit to a feeling of perhaps unjustifiable pride to see a few hundred guests floating around the draughting room in evening gowns and full dress. It was the first time one could feel Mr. Wright’s position of being able to say “I told you so!” to doubting neighbors….
The drafting room has been painted and is thereby improved several hundred percent, and the theater as perhaps you have heard, is a gem of gay architecture. It is of course complete with sound and movie apparatus….”
(The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives [The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York], FICHEID: G033B02.)
