Taliesin West - Organic Design in a Desert Garden

Taliesin West - Organic Design in a Desert Garden Taliesin West  began not as a grand scheme, but a simple need. Frank Lloyd Wright and his apprentices had traveled a long distance from his Taliesin school in Spring Green, Wisconsin to build a resort hotel in Chandler, Arizona. Because they were far from home, they set up camp on a stretch of the Sonoran Desert near the construction site outside of Scottsdale. Wright fell in love with the desert. He wrote in 1935 that the desert was a grand garden, with its rim of arid mountains spotted like the leopards skin or tattooed with amazing patterns of creation. Its sheer beauty of space and pattern does not exist, I think, in the world, Wright proclaimed. This great desert garden is Arizonas chief asset. Building Taliesin West The early encampment at Taliesin West contained little more than temporary shelters made of wood and canvas. However, Frank Lloyd Wright was inspired by the dramatic, rugged landscape. He envisioned an elaborate complex of buildings that would embody his concept of organic architecture. He wanted the buildings to evolve from and blend with the environment. In 1937, the desert school known as Taliesin West was launched. Following in the tradition of Taliesin in Wisconsin, Wrights apprentices studied, worked, and lived in shelters they crafted using materials native to the land. Taliesin is a Welsh word meaning shining brow. Both of Wrights Taliesin homesteads hug the contours of the earth like a shining brow on the hilly landscape. Organic Design at Taliesin West Architectural historian G. E. Kidder Smith reminds us that Wright taught his students to design in kinship with the environment, admonishing students, for instance, not to build on top of a hill in dominance, but beside it in partnership. This is the essence of organic architecture. Lugging stone and sand, the students constructed buildings that seemed to grow from the earth and the McDowell Mountains. Wood and steel beams supported translucent canvas roofs. Natural stone combined with glass and plastic to create surprising shapes and textures. Interior space flowed naturally into the open desert. For awhile, Taliesin West was a retreat from the harsh Wisconsin winters. Eventually, air conditioning was added and students stayed through the fall and spring. Taliesin West Today At Taliesin West, the desert is never still. Over the years, Wright and his students made many changes, and the school continues to evolve. Today, the 600 acre complex includes a drafting studio, Wrights former architectural office and living quarters, a dining room and kitchen, several theaters, housing for apprentices and staff, a student workshop, and expansive grounds with pools, terraces and gardens. Experimental structures built by apprentice architects dot the landscape. Taliesin West is home of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, whose alumni become Taliesin Fellows. Taliesin West is also the headquarters of the FLW Foundation, a powerful overseer of Wrights properties, mission, and legacy. In 1973 the American Institute of Architects (AIA) gave the property its Twenty-five Year Award. On its fiftieth anniversary in 1987, Taliesin West won special recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives, which called the complex the highest achievement in American artistic and architectural expression. According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Taliesin West is one of 17 buildings in the United States that exemplify Wrights contribution to American architecture. Next to Wisconsin, gathering of the waters, Wright has written, Arizona, arid zone, is my favorite State. Each very different from the other, but something individual in them both not to be found elsewhere. Sources Frank Lloyd Wright On Architecture: Selected Writings (1894-1940), Frederick Gutheim, ed., Grossets Universal Library, 1941, pp. 197, 159Source Book of American Architecture by G. E. Kidder Smith, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, p. 390The Future of Architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, New American Library, Horizon Press, 1953, p. 21

Affiliate, Franchise, and al-Qaeda

Affiliate, Franchise, and al-Qaeda Affiliate, Franchise, and al-Qaeda Affiliate, Franchise, and al-Qaeda By Maeve Maddox The first time I heard the expression al-Qaeda franchise, I ran to the dictionary. Surely, I thought, that cant be a correct use of the word franchise. The word franchise can be used with more than one meaning, of course. When we say that American women obtained the franchise in 1920, we mean that they obtained the right to vote. To enfranchise a person can mean either to confer the right to vote on a person or, in the context of servitude, to give a person his freedom. Since 1959, the noun franchise has been used with the meaning authorization by a company to sell its products or services. In 1966 it acquired the sense of commercial licensing. We speak of sports franchises, hotel franchises, and restaurant franchises. In every type of franchise, a business relationship exists in which an authorizing entity confers rights to operate some kind of business according to specified rules in exchange for a licensing fee. The noun affiliate is used in a similar way. An affiliate company is one that is related to another in a subordinate way. Koch Nitrogen Company and its affiliates are collectively one of the worlds largest producers and marketers of nitrogen fertilizers. Online marketing makes use of affiliate sellers who may promote a companys product on their websites for a percentage of its selling price, or who may sell their own products on a site owned by a large company to which they pay a percentage of their earnings. With both franchises and affiliates theres a mutually recognized and acknowledged business relationship, and money changes hands. It seems to me that the journalistic trend of referring to just any nest of terrorists as al-Qaeda affiliates or franchises is counterproductive. I understand the rationale for wanting a term that enables one to talk about copycat bombers without conveying the idea that al-Qaeda is more widespread and powerful than in fact it is. According to BBC writer John Simpson, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner popularised the notion that, far from being a clear-cut organisation with executives and an international membership, al-Qaeda was like a franchise. Any effort to strip al-Qaeda of its bogeyman mystique is a step in the right direction, but using words that make us think of MacDonalds or Amazon.com may not be the best way to go about it. Unless a group like the one in Yemen that tried to send bombs to Chicago really is organized, funded, or sponsored by al-Qaeda, why not just call it an extremist group? Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:What is the Difference Between "These" and "Those"?Acronym vs. Initialism5 Examples of Misplaced Modifiers