In October 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Olgivanna opened a school for the training of young architects. Since their home Taliesin, in Wisconsin, was the base of operations for this new school they named it “The Taliesin Fellowship.” Its general outline of work and study was unlike anything else in the nation at that time, or the
PREFACE
world, for that matter. Applicants who were accepted were not called “students” but “apprentices.” Their education and training would be in the nature of apprenticeship to Mr. Wright, with a strong handson approach. The program was divided into three parts. First, they would assist Mr. Wright in his work in the drafting room, each according to his or her capabilities. In the early years of the Taliesin Fellowship, with the nation still suffering under the Great Depression, there was little architectural work for Mr. Wright. But there was a great amount of work to be done in the second part of their apprenticeship training – building construction. In 1932 Taliesin needed to be refitted to house the apprentices, and a quarter mile over the hill from Taliesin were the Hillside Home School buildings. This school was founded by his maternal aunts, Jane Lloyd Jones and Ellen Lloyd Jones, in 1886. The aunts were lovingly called “Aunt Jennie” and “Aunt Nell” and their system of education was way beyond its time, taking in boys and girls from age five to eighteen, to live in a home environment at the school. Their education consisted, among the usual training, of a strong diet of Transcendental Unitarian beliefs, dear to the entire Lloyd Jones family. By 1917 the school was closed and the aunts retired. They gave the buildings and the land to their nephew, exacting a promise from him that he would someday continue the school’s mission of education. In 1932, Mr. Wright honored that promise, this time as education in the cause of architecture. The Hillside buildings, neglected for fifteen years, had fallen into a sad state of disrepair and victim of vandalism. To repair them was the first task in this program of construction. Apprentices who had little or no experience along these lines soon found themselves cutting stone from neighboring quarries, felling trees in the forests to be turned into lumber, and then putting it all together to create new buildings or additions to the existing ones. The third phase of their training was the community life within these buildings, keeping them clean, decorated with fresh flowers and branches, according to the season, and repairing them when necessary. Added to this, Mrs. Wright suggested that they hire no cooks, but encouraged the apprentices to learn how to prepare and serve meals. Soon music became an essential factor in the life of the Taliesin Fellowship and a chorus was formed. Apprentices who had musical training formed a chamber ensemble. The principle building of the Hillside Home School was simply called “Hillside,” a building of sturdy sandstone and oak that Mr. Wright had designed for the aunts in 1902. With the formation of the Taliesin Fellowship, its wood shop became a new kitchen and dining room, while its gymnasium was converted into a playhouse/theater. Here musical events took place weekly, and cinema came into play, showcasing
films from around the world. Eventually a new, large drafting room was added to the north side of the building. Midway between Taliesin and Hillside were the barns, called “Midway,” for the cattle, hogs, and chickens. Farming, too, became an essential part of this apprenticeship training. During the Depression years, growing their own food was truly a hand-tomouth affair, and a very necessary one with produce coming from the kitchen gardens at Hillside, as well as field crops. Vegetables and fruit, harvested in the season, were put down in a deep root cellar at Taliesin for winter provision. Even after those early hand-to-mouth days were over, work in the kitchen gardens and field crops remained a steady tradition at Taliesin. Consuming the produce that one raised on one’s own soil was a powerfully contributing factor to good health. This was the well-rounded life that the Wrights believed to be essential as a hands-on education that would develop strong young men and women ultimately to become architects. “We will have no armchair architects here,” Mr. Wright avowed. Apprentices were learning not only how to design a building, but also how it was constructed, and how it was maintained. In work there was no segregation of the sexes at Taliesin. The young women were able to tend the concrete mixer to provide cement and mortar while the young men were able to tend the mixing bowl to provide bread and cakes. In 1940, into this vigorous and exciting world of Mr. and Mrs. Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship came Aaron G. Green, a young man of twenty-three. At that time, neither Frank Lloyd Wright nor his work was new to Aaron. In 1938, while at the Cooper Union in New York, he came across the January issue of The Architectural Forum, which had recently featured a solo edition devoted to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. At the same time Aaron read Frank Lloyd Wright’s An Autobiography and became determined to join Mr. Wright. Returning to his home in Florence, Alabama, he met with his friends Mildred and Stanley Rosenbaum, who had recently heard of the Usonian home that Mr. Wright had designed for the Herbert Jacobs family in Madison, Wisconsin. The Rosenbaums decided they wanted a home along the same lines, and asked Aaron to design one for them. Aaron’s reply was that if they desired a Usonian home, they should go directly to the source. Thus Aaron, although a practicing architect by this time, graciously turned the commission over to Mr. Wright. This generosity would be a character feature of Aaron’s that would endure during his entire life. On the first conceptual sketch of the Rosenbaum plan, Mr. Wright wrote, “House for client of A. G. Green.” Following the production of the working drawings, or construction documents as they are called today, Aaron volunteered to supervise the construction of the house, a task for which he was well qualified. The concept of design of the Usonian House was an entirely innovative system of building construction, and most of the contractors whom clients selected to build found the drawings needed interpretation. To accommodate this need, Mr. Wright would send an apprentice, usually the one associated with the design of that particular house, to live with the client and supervise the construction. This practice went on all during the years of the Taliesin Fellowship. It was, naturally, a 4