Frank Lloyd Wright was Wisconsin’s gift to the field of architecture, and the state proudly displays several of his masterpieces, in addition to a number of other architects’ treasures.
In many ways, Wright’s spirit remains strongest in the Madison and Wisconsin Dells areas, where he spent his formative years and much of his career. Much of Wright’s inspiration—including his central idea that architecture worked best with the land, not despite it—is thought to have come from Wisconsin’s landscapes.
Consider that Wright’s former home and school, Taliesin, is just 35 miles from Madison in Spring Green. Wright placed it unobtrusively into the brow of the landscape, carefully using local limestone to construct chimneys and piers, and even mixing Wisconsin River sand into the building’s stucco to evoke the river’s sandbars. Taliesin was Wright’s ever-evolving model of how to live harmoniously on the land, and he was sufficiently devoted to it to rebuild even after two damaging structural fires.
Today, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation manages this National Historic Landmark, and the nonprofit Taliesin Preservation conducts two off-the-shelf group tours—the Hillside Tour and the Taliesin Tour—and will work with planners to customize a tour for groups of more than 21 people.
Visitors who travel to Taliesin from either Madison or Wisconsin Dells should also stop at The House on the Rock, architect Alex Jordan’s sprawling complex in Spring Green. It’s centered on a stunning house built, somewhat adventurously, atop a 60-foot rock chimney, with sweeping views of the surrounding Wyoming Valley. Nearby, the House on the Rock features a resort and an inn, offering beautiful hotel and retreat-type settings inspired by both Wright and Jordan. Groups can meet here and stay in any of 80 luxury suites at the resort, or opt for the 177 guest rooms split between the inn’s two lodge properties.
In the Madison suburb of Shorewood Hills, the Unitarian Meeting House is one of the Western world’s more innovative church buildings. The original building was designed by Wright, with two later additions in 1964 and 1990 designed by Taliesin Associated Architects. Not only are weekday tours available from May through September for a nominal donation, groups can rent this facility—with its innovative architecture based on single and double equilateral triangles—for meetings.
In Madison, architect George Browne Post’s Wisconsin State Capitol building, modeled closely on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is worth touring simply to see its gorgeous rotunda. The rotunda’s north, south, east, and west points all contain a historic monument, plus four 12-foot-high mosaics that each feature more than 100,000 pieces of glass and represent the three branches of government as well as liberty.
For More Info
House on the Rock 608.935.3639 (house) 800.657.7677 (meettings)
www.thehouseontherock.com
Taliesin Preservation 877.588.7900
www.taliesinpreservation.org
Unitarian Meeting House 608.233.9774
www.fusmadison.org/mh/facilities.shtml
Wisconsin State Capitol 608.266.0382
www.wisconsin.gov
