Wisconsin touts Wright designs,
Trail of architect’s work showcases his range, heritage
Frank Lloyd Wright is perhaps best known for major creations such as the Guggenheim in New York and Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. But it’s the rolling hills of southern Wisconsin where the architect was born and developed a love for natural landscapes that would influence and inform his distinctive style. It’s where he built his summer home, Taliesin, a living laboratory and architecture school that still draws casual and fervent admirers today.
Taliesin serves as one stop, and undoubtedly the centerpiece, of the new Frank Lloyd Wright Trail, a nine-stop, self-guided tour of Wright sites in southern Wisconsin that was officially dedicated May 10 at SC Johnson headquarters in Racine. SC Johnson worked with state legislators and the Department of Tourism to create the official trail, marked by 115 highway signs, with 31 more scheduled to be up by mid-July.
“I think the diversity along this 200-mile trail is what is really going to surprise people,” said Wisconsin Tourism Secretary Stephanie Klett, noting the tour includes everything from Wright’s hallmark Prairie-style home to a church to a corporate headquarters.
TALIESIN
Frank Lloyd Wright was born June 8, 1867, in Richland Center. The A.D. German Warehouse there, a four-story red brick building designed by Wright in 1915, is the westernmost stop on the Wright Trail.
About 25 miles to the southeast is Wright’s largest Wisconsin legacy. His maternal grandparents owned land along the Wisconsin River near Spring Green, and in 1911 he began building Taliesin into the crown of his favorite hill there.
The sprawling 800-acre Taliesin estate features not just Wright’s home, but also six other Wright-designed structures, including Tan-y-Deri, a home he designed for his sister’s family, and the Hillside Studio & Theater, where apprentices learned at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
A two-hour highlights tour offers an overview of the estate, with a look inside the Hillside Studio and Taliesin, and guides dishing on the estate’s and archi- tect’s history.
“It’s truly his laboratory,” said Aron Meudt-Thering, communications coordinator for Taliesin Preservation, the nonprofit that manages the estate. “He was testing these ideas and theories here at Taliesin, and then he would go out and use those things in his clients’ work.”
One of those works is nearby and another stop on the trail: the Wyoming Valley School. The only Wright-designed public school was built in 1957. Today it is a nonprofit cultural arts center.
MADISON AND MILWAUKEE
The trail continues with a stop at the First Unitarian Society Meeting House in Madison. Church members helped haul the limestone blocks used to build the triangular structure, which includes an airy auditorium. Also in Madison is the Wright-designed Monona Terrace.
From Madison it’s 80 miles east to Milwaukee and Wright’s American System-Built homes on Burnham Street, another stop on the trail. In contrast to major projects like Taliesin and Fallingwater, these homes were designed for the less affluent.
“One of the things that I find fascinating is pre-World War I here he was really working hard thinking about how can we make spaces for just the average Joe,” Sherri Shokler of Wright in Wisconsin said.
Sixteen of the prefab homes were built across the country between 1915 and 1917. Fourteen still stand, including six in Milwaukee. While those are privately owned, the Model B1 at 2714 W. Burnham St. is open for tours on select Saturdays, including during special events such as the Wright & Like Tour on June 3.
WRIGHT IN RACINE
From Milwaukee, the Frank Lloyd Wright Trail continues south to Racine, home to Wingspread and the SC Johnson Administration Building and Research Center, which opened for tours in 2014.
The Administration Building was completed in 1939 and includes towering columns Wright called “dendriform,” or tree-like, for their narrow bases (9 inches) that widen to 18 1⁄2 feet at their tops. The building also has 43 miles of Pyrex tubes that were intended to allow in sunlight while cutting glare in the massive Great Workroom, which features curved desks and chairs designed by Wright.
The architect continued the tree and Pyrex themes on the 15-story Research Tower, completed in 1950, with the cantilevered structure extending 54 feet into the ground. Products such as Glade, Pledge and Off! were developed in the structure, and today it houses a re-created 1950s lab.
Also in Racine is Wingspread, the Wright-designed former home of third-generation SC Johnson president H.F. Johnson Jr. Wright called the home, completed in 1939, “the last of the Prairie houses.” Its four sprawling wings sprout from a central core, making it the largest of the Prairie homes.