Well today was pretty much all about me. We had driven to Wisconsin last night (we were originally going to stop halfway to sleep but decided to gun it and got to the hotel at about midnight) and then had a bit of a sleep in before driving out to see some Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. For those of you that know about architecture you will (or should) know who Frank is. For those that don't...............well maybe google him or check out http://www.taliesinpreservation.org/
We went to the visitor centre and took a tour of the Hillside School. This was originally a boarding school he built for his Aunts back in ye olden days but in the early 30's he founded The Taliesin Fellowship there. Students came to study architecture there with him and also lived there. Part of that study included working on the farm as Frank believed that to design building that worked in harmony with nature you should actually get out there and be a part of it. He designed buildings to follow the fall of the land (seems obvious nowadays but back then it was a new way of thinking) and didn't think it was a good idea to build on top of a hill. As he said "If you build on top of a hill, you lose the hill."
We went to the visitor centre and took a tour of the Hillside School. This was originally a boarding school he built for his Aunts back in ye olden days but in the early 30's he founded The Taliesin Fellowship there. Students came to study architecture there with him and also lived there. Part of that study included working on the farm as Frank believed that to design building that worked in harmony with nature you should actually get out there and be a part of it. He designed buildings to follow the fall of the land (seems obvious nowadays but back then it was a new way of thinking) and didn't think it was a good idea to build on top of a hill. As he said "If you build on top of a hill, you lose the hill."
The Taliesin Fellowship is now The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture for about 20-30 lucky students. Six months of the year is spent studying there and the other six are in Arizona (for the winter). On the same site was the Romeo and Juliet windmill tower that he designed. I really enjoyed this and if there was more time would have loved to see more of his buildings.
On the way back to Madison we stopped off at another building tourist attraction. Some guy had built this huge building into the side of a rock. I can't actually remember what it was called because we decided not to go through it. After Frank it just seemed way too tacky and we would rather spend our money on things we really want to see.
We drove back to Madison and looked around but were both pretty tired so instead of going into the State Capitol building we drove past and took a photo out of the window.
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