The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (often referred to as "The Guggenheim") is a well-known art museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a renowned and continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, the artist Hilla von Rebay. It adopted its current name after the death of its founder, Solomon R. Guggenheim, in 1952. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the cylindrical museum building, wider at the top than the bottom, was conceived as a "temple of the spirit" and is one of the 20th century's most important architectural landmarks. The building opened on October 21, 1959, replacing rented spaces used by the museum since its founding. Its unique ramp gallery extends from just under the skylight in the ceiling in a long, continuous spiral along the outer edges of the building until it reaches the ground level. The building underwent extensive expansion and renovations from 1992 to 1993 (when an adjoining tower was built) and from 2005 to 2008. The museum's collection has grown organically, over eight decades, and is founded upon several important private collections, beginning with Solomon R. Guggenheim's original collection. The collection is shared with the museum's sister museums in Bilbao, Spain, and elsewhere. On October 21, 1959, ten years after the death of Solomon Guggenheim and six months after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Museum first opened its doors to large crowds. The building instantly polarized architecture critics, though today it is widely praised. Some of the criticism focused on the idea that the building overshadows the artworks displayed inside, and that it is difficult to properly hang paintings in the shallow, windowless, concave exhibition niches that surround the central spiral. Prior to its opening, twenty-one artists signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space. Thomas M. Messer succeeded Sweeney as director of the museum (but not the foundation) in 1961 and stayed for 27 years, the longest tenure of any of the city's major arts institutions' directors. When Messer took over, the museum's ability to present art at all was still in doubt due to the challenges presented by continuous spiral ramp gallery that is both tilted and has non-vertical curved walls. It is difficult to properly hang paintings in the shallow, windowless exhibition niches that surround the central spiral: canvasses must be mounted raised from the wall's surface. Paintings hung slanted back would appear "as on the artist's easel". There is limited space within the niches for sculpture. Almost immediately, in 1962, Messer took a risk putting on a large exhibition that combined the Guggenheim's paintings with sculptures on loan from the Hirshhorn collection. Three dimensional sculpture, in particular, raised "the problem of installing such a show in a museum bearing so close a resemblance to the circular geography of hell", where any vertical object appears tilted in a "drunken lurch" because the slope of the floor and the curvature of the walls could combine to produce vexing optical illusions. It turned out that the combination could work well in the Guggenheim's space, but, Messer recalled that at the time, "I was scared. I half felt that this would be my last exhibition." Messer had the foresight to prepare by staging a smaller sculpture exhibition the previous year, in which he discovered how to compensate for the space's weird geometry by constructing special plinths at a particular angle, so the pieces were not at a true vertical yet appeared to be so. In the earlier sculpture show, this trick proved impossible for one piece, an Alexander Calder mobile whose wire inevitably hung at a trueplumb vertical, "suggesting hallucination" in the disorienting context of the tilted floor. The next year, Messer acquired a private collection from art dealer Justin K. Thannhauser for the museum's permanent collection. These 73 works include Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and French modern masterpieces, including important works by Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh and 32 works by Pablo Picasso. In 1992, the building was supplemented by an adjoining rectangular tower, taller than the original spiral, designed by the architectural firm of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects. By that point, the building had become iconic enough that this augmentation of Wright's original design was itself controversial.

Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park, Illinois, and the home of the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation. It was designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and built between 1905 and 1908. Unity Temple is considered to be one of Wright's most important structures dating from the first decade of the twentieth century. Because of its consolidation of aesthetic intent and structure through use of a single material, reinforced concrete, Unity Temple is considered by many architects to be the first modern building in the world. This idea became of central importance to the modern architects who followed Wright, such as Mies Van Der Rohe, and even the post-modernists, such as Frank Gehry. The Unitarian Universalist congregation that owns and worships in Unity Temple was formed in 1871, and has no connection with Unity Church, a religious organization founded in 1889. In 1905, a lightning strike started a fire which destroyed the wood-framed Oak Park Unity Church, architect Frank Lloyd Wright offered to design a new structure for the Universalist congregation of Oak Park, Illinois. The result was the Unity Temple. Wright was not only living in Oak Park but also came from a family of Unitarians - which faith than had many beliefs in common with Universalism. The congregation needed a space of worship, as well as a community room. There were several immediate problems that the architect had to work with in order to satisfy the client. The budget was $45,000, a modest amount even in the early 20th century. Building materials had to be inexpensive and as Wright said, “concrete is cheap.” The same concrete molds were used multiple times, as Wright had designed repeating walls with similar dimensions. Additionally, the building site stood on a busy street. And finally, the architect was expected to design not only the structure but also furniture and stained glass for the building. Charles E. Roberts, an engineer, inventor and an important early client of Frank Lloyd Wright, served on the church's building committee and was a key figure in seeing that Wright's vision for the church became a reality. For Roberts, Wright also remodeled Roberts' home and the Charles E. Roberts Stable. To accommodate the needs of the congregation, Wright divided the community space from the temple space through a low, middle loggia that could be approached from either side. This was an efficient use of space and kept down on noise between the two main gathering areas: those coming for religious services would be separated via the loggia from those coming for community events. The plan of the design looks back to the bipartite design of his own studio built several blocks away in 1898: with two portions of the building similar in composition and separated by a lower passageway, and one section being larger than the other. The Guggenheim Museum in New York City is another bipartite design. Also for the Temple's architecture, Wright borrowed several attributes from his previous creation, the Larkin Administration Building. Key features derived were use of stained glass windows as well as geometric figure. But, unlike the Larkin Building, the Temple's plan produced a perfect square, as opposed to the double-square rectangle of the Larkin. To reduce noise from the street, Wright eliminated street level windows in the temple. Instead, natural light comes from stained glass windows in the roof and clerestories along the upper walls. Because the members of the parish would not be able to look outside, Unity Temple's stained glass was designed with green, yellow, and brown tones in order to evoke the colors of nature. The main floor of the temple is accessed via a lower floor (which has seating space), and the room also has two balconies for the seating of the congregation. These varying seating levels allowed the architect to design a building to fit the size of the congregation, but efficiently: no one person in the congregation is more than 40 feet from the pulpit. Wright also designed the building with very good acoustics. The design of Unity Temple represents a leap forward in design for Wright. In recounting his experiences with Unity Temple, he stated that this design was the first time he ever realized that the real heart of a building is its space, not its walls. Indeed, architectural historians have commented on Wright's genius in creating and manipulating space in his designs; in his bookThe Master Builders, Peter Blake entitled the section on Wright "The Mastery of Space." In addition to being very accomplished with making the most out of the space he had, Wright also found the concept of "Unity" was very prominent mainly because of how he managed to fuse together space, experience and the material world. This was key to Unity Temple which has both a common meeting area and the congregation of church-goers. The sanctuary space gives the best example of this according to practicing architect Robert McCarter. The building was completed in 1908 and officially dedicated on September 26, 1909. The original Universalist (now Unitarian Universalist) congregation still owns and uses Unity Temple, although a separate and secular organization, the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation , is in charge of the building's multimillion-dollar restoration effort. Chicago restoration architect Gunny Harboe is in charge of the restoration with CTLGroup providing the engineering and materials technology expertise. In April 2009, Unity Temple, due to water seepage, was added to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 11 most endangered historic places The building has been a United States National Historic Landmark since 1971 and was chosen in a 1991 poll in the magazine,Architectural Recordas one of the 100 most significant buildings in the United States of the previous 100 years (Unity Temple was #6). Additionally, Unity Temple was chosen by the American Institute of Architects as one of 17 buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright that should be retained as his architectural contribution to American culture. In 2008, the U.S. National Park Service submitted Unity Temple, along with nine other Frank Lloyd Wright properties, to a tentative list for World Heritage Status. The 10 sites have been submitted as one, total, site. The January 22, 2008 press release from the National Park Service website announcing the nominations states that, "The preparation of a Tentative List is a necessary first step in the process of nominating a site to the World Heritage List." After revised proposals, the properties were inscribed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" in July 2019. A drawback to the modern design of the Unity Temple is structural problems that have emerged over time. Through the years of its existence, the Unity Temple's concrete structure has suffered extensive water damage. Pieces of the roof fell inside the structure, and water eroded other parts of the exterior, as well. A restoration plan was developed from 2000 to 2006, and beginning in April 2015, a $23 million interior and exterior restoration began. The restoration focused on structural improvements such as replacing the majority of the building's 16 separate flat roofs. The restoration also addressed decorative and environmental improvements to the building. Unity Temple closed to the public in June 2015. Restoration work was completed in June 2017 and the building reopened for tours as of July 1, 2017. The building remains closed to tours on Sundays, when the Unitarian Universalist church that calls the building home has its day of worship. In 2018, the restoration temple received an award for excellence by the American Institute of Architects, Chicago chapter.

Taliesin, sometimes known as Taliesin East, Taliesin Spring Green, or Taliesin North after 1937, was the estate of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Located 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of the village of Spring Green, Wisconsin, United States, the 600-acre (240 ha) property was developed on land that originally belonged to Wright's maternal family. Wright designed the Taliesin structure two years after leaving his first wife and home in Oak Park, Illinois with a mistress, Mamah Borthwick. The design of the original building was consistent with the design principles of the Prairie School, emulating the flatness of the plains and the natural limestone outcroppings of Wisconsin's Driftless Area. The structure (which included an agricultural and studio wing) was completed in 1911. Wright rebuilt the Taliesin residential wing in 1914 after a disgruntled employee set fire to the living quarters and murdered Borthwick and six others. This second version was used only sparingly by Wright as he worked on projects abroad. He returned to the house in 1922 following completion of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. A fire caused by electrical problems destroyed the living quarters in April 1925. The third version of the living quarters was constructed by Wright by late 1925. In 1927, financial problems caused a foreclosure on the building by the Bank of Wisconsin. Wright was able to reacquire the building with the financial help of friends and was able to reoccupy it as of November, 1928. Taliesin III was Wright's home for the rest of his life, although he began to winter at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona upon its completion in 1937. Many of Wright's acclaimed buildings were designed here, including Fallingwater, "Jacobs I" (the first Wright-designed residence of Herbert and Katherine Jacobs), the Johnson Wax Headquarters, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Wright was also an avid collector of Asian art and used Taliesin as a storehouse and private museum. Wright left Taliesin and the 600-acre Taliesin Estate to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation (founded by him and his third wife in 1940) upon his death in 1959. This organization oversaw renovations to the estate until late 1992 upon the founding of Taliesin Preservation, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the building and estate in Wisconsin. Taliesin mostly operates as a museum, however it is still occupied by former students of Wright's in addition to students at The School of Architecture at Taliesin on a seasonal basis. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and was inscribed as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019. In addition to the residence, there are four Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings on the estate: the Romeo and Juliet Windmill, designed by Wright in 1896; Tan-y-Deri, the home he designed for Jane and Andrew Porter, his sister and brother-in-law, designed in 1907; the Hillside Home School, originally designed in 1901 for his aunts' school, and Midway Barn, a farming facility. Jones Valley, the Wisconsin River valley in which Taliesin sits, was formed during Pre-Illinoian glaciation. This region of North America, known as the Driftless Area, was totally surrounded by ice during Wisconsin glaciation, but the area itself was not glaciated. The result is an unusually hilly landscape with deeply carved river valleys. The valley, approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of the village of Spring Green, Wisconsin, was originally settled by Frank Lloyd Wright's maternal grandfather, Richard Lloyd Jones. Jones had emigrated with his family from Wales, moving to the Town of Ixonia in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. In 1858, Jones and the family moved from Ixonia to this part of Wisconsin to start a farm. By the 1870s, Richard's sons had taken over operation of the farm, and they invited Wright to work during summers as a farmhand. Wright's aunts Jane and Ellen C. Lloyd Jones (known as Jennie and Nell) began a co-educational school, the Hillside Home School, in the family valley in 1887 and let Wright design the building; this was Wright's first independent commission. In 1896, Wright's aunts again commissioned Wright, this time to build a windmill. The resulting Romeo and Juliet Windmill was unorthodox but stable. In the winter of 1900, Wright compiled a portfolio of photographs he took of the surrounding area for a promotional brochure for the Hillside School. In 1901, Wright was again commissioned by Jennie and Nell to design another structure. Unsatisfied with his original design for the Hillside School, Wright designed the Hillside Home School in 1901 in the Prairie Style. Wright later sent several of his children to receive an education at the school. Wright's final commission on the farm was a house for his sister Jane Porter in 1907. Tan-Y-Deri, Welsh for "Under the Oaks", was a design based on his recentLadies Home Journalarticle "A Fireproof House for $5000." The family, their ideas, religion, and ideals, greatly influenced the young Wright, who later changed his middle name from Lincoln (in honor of Abraham Lincoln) to Lloyd in deference to his mother's family. When Wright decided to construct a home in this valley, he chose the name of the Welsh bard Taliesin, whose name means "shining brow" or "radiant brow". Wright learned of the poet through Richard Hovey'sTaliesin: A Masque, a story about an artist's struggle for identity. The Welsh name also suited Wright's roots, as the Lloyd Joneses gave Welsh names to their properties. The hill upon which Taliesin was built was a favorite from Wright's youth; he saw the house as a "shining brow" on the hill. Although the name was originally only applied to the house, Wright later used the term to refer to the entire property. Wright and others used roman numerals to distinguish the three versions of the house. From 1898 to 1909, architect Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked out of his home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois. In Oak Park, Wright had developed his concept of Prairie School architecture, designing houses primarily for local clients. In 1903, Wright began designing a home for Edwin Cheney, but quickly took a liking for Cheney's wife. Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney began an affair and separated from their spouses in 1909. They met up in Florence, Italy, in February 1910, where Wright made sketches of his future studio. He was particularly inspired by Michelozzo's Villa Medici in Fiesole because it was built into a hill, had commanding views of its surroundings, and featured gardens on two levels. In 1910, the pair sought to return to the United States, but knew they could not escape scandal if they returned together to Oak Park. Wright saw an alternative—his family's ancestral farm near Spring Green, Wisconsin. Wright returned alone to the United States in late 1910, publicly reconciling with Kitty while working to secure money to buy land for a house for himself and Borthwick. On April 3, 1911, Wright wrote to a friend requesting money to purchase "a small house" for his mother. By the 10th, Wright's mother Anna had a signed deed for the property. By using Anna's name, Wright was able to secure the 31.5-acre (12.7 ha) property without attracting any attention to the affair. Late in the summer, Mamah Borthwick (having divorced Cheney and legally reverting to her maiden name) quietly moved into the property, staying with Wright's sister at Tan-y-Deri. However, Wright and Borthwick's new property was discovered by aChicago Examinerreporter that fall, and the affair made headlines in theChicago Tribuneon Christmas Eve. The Taliesin house had three sections: two broad portions on either end and a narrow connecting loggia. Typical of a Prairie School design, the house was, as Wright described, "low, wide, and snug." As with most of his houses, Wright designed the furniture. One of these broad sections was used as Wright's studio and workroom. A small apartment wing juts out of this wing; the apartment may have originally been intended for Wright's mother, but was used by Wright's head draftsman. Wright and Borthwick lived in the other broad portion. The one-story complex was accessed by a road leading up the hill to the rear of the building. The estate gateway was on County Road C, just west of Wisconsin Road 23. Iron entry gates were flanked by limestone piers capped with planter urns. Wright chose yellow limestone for the house from a quarry of outcropping ledges on a nearby hill. Local farmers helped Wright move the stone up the Taliesin hill. Stones were laid in long, thin ledges, evoking the natural way that they were found in the quarry and across the Driftless Area. Plaster for the interior walls was mixed with sienna, giving the finished product a golden hue. This caused the plaster to resemble the sand on the banks of the nearby Wisconsin River. The outside plaster walls were similar, but mixed with cement, resulting in a grayer color. Windows were placed so that sun could come through openings in every room at every point of the day. Wright chose not to install gutters so that icicles would form in winter. Shingles on the gradually-pitched roof were designed to weather to a silver-grey color, matching the branches of nearby trees. A porte-cochère was built over the main entrance of the living quarters to provide shelter for visiting automobiles. The finished house measured approximately 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of enclosed space. Upon moving in with Borthwick in the winter 1911, Wright resumed work on his architectural projects, but he struggled to secure commissions because of the ongoing negative publicity over his affair with Borthwick (whose ex-husband, Edwin Cheney, maintained main custody of their son and daughter). However, Wright did produce some of his most acclaimed works during this time period, including the Midway Gardens in Chicago and the Avery Coonley Playhouse in Riverside. He also indulged his hobby for collecting Japanese art, and quickly became a renowned authority. Borthwick translated four works from Swedish difference feminist Ellen Key. In his spare time, Wright developed a fruit farm on the property with over a thousand fruit trees and bushes that he ordered from Jens Jensen in 1912. It is unknown exactly how many were planted, because part of the orchard was destroyed during a railroad strike. Wright requested two hundred and eighty-five apple trees planted, including one hundred McIntosh, fifty Wealthy, fifty Golden Russet, and fifty Fameuse. Among the bushes were three hundred gooseberry, two hundred blackberry, and two hundred raspberry. The property also grew pears, asparagus, rhubarb, and plums. The fruit and vegetable plants were placed along the contour of the estate, which may have been done to mimic the farms he saw while in Italy. Wright also dammed a creek on the property to create an artificial lake, which was stocked with fish and aquatic fowl. This water garden, probably inspired by the ones he saw in Japan, created a natural gateway to the property. In 1912, Wright designed what he called a "tea circle" in the middle of the courtyard, adjacent to the crown of the hill. This circle was heavily inspired by Jens Jensen's council circles, but also took influence from Japanese wabi-sabi landscape architecture. Unlike Jensen's circles, the rough-cut limestone tea circle was much larger and featured a pool in the center. The circle featured a curved stone bench flanked with Chinese jars built during the Ming Dynasty. A large oak tree stood at the center until it blew down in a storm in 1998. The tea garden also included a large plaster replica ofFlower in the Crannied Wall, a statue originally designed by Richard Bock for the Susan Lawrence Dana House; the namesake poem is inscribed on its rear. Julian Carlton was a 31-year-old man who came to work as a chef and servant at Taliesin for the summer. Carlton was an Afro-Caribbean of West Indian descent, ostensibly from Barbados. He was recommended to Wright by John Vogelsong Jr., the caterer for the Midway Gardens project. Carlton and his wife Gertrude had previously served in the house of Vogelsong's parents in Chicago. Originally a genial presence on the estate, Carlton grew increasingly paranoid. He stayed up late at night with a butcher knife, looking out the window. This behavior had been noticed by Wright and Borthwick, who issued an ad in a local paper for a replacement cook. Carlton was given notice that August 15, 1914, would be his last day in their employ. Before he left, Carlton plotted to kill the residents of Taliesin. His primary target was draftsman Emil Brodelle, who had called Carlton a "black son-of-a-bitch" on August 12 for not following an order. Brodelle and Carlton also engaged in a minor physical confrontation two days later. He planned the assault, targeting the noon hour, when Borthwick, her children, and the studio personnel would be on opposite sides of the property awaiting lunch. Wright was away in Chicago completing Midway Gardens while Borthwick stayed at home with her two children, 11-year old John and 9-year-old Martha. On August 15, Carlton grabbed a shingling hatchet and began an attack. He started with the Borthwicks, who were waiting on the porch off the living room. Mamah Borthwick was killed by a single blow to the face, and her son John was slaughtered as he sat in his chair. Martha managed to flee, but was hunted down and slain in the courtyard. He then coated the bodies in gasoline and lit them on fire, setting the house ablaze. Carlton then turned his attention to the other six residents, pouring gasoline underneath the door of the far end of the residence and setting it on fire. Draftsman Herbert Fritz managed to break open a window and escape, though he broke his arm in the process. Carlton then entered the other dining room and killed Brodelle. He then hid, waiting for the other residents to try to escape. As foreman William Weston and his 13-year-old son Ernest ran through the door, Carlton attacked with the hatchet. The Westons escaped, but Ernest died from his wounds hours later. Carlton sought out the final two residents, laborer Thomas Brunker and gardener David Lindblom. Brunker and Lindblom managed to fight off Carlton and escape, but died days later from their burns and injuries. With the house empty, Carlton ran to the basement and into a fireproof furnace chamber. He brought a small vial of hydrochloric acid with him as a fallback plan in case the heat became too much for him to handle. Carlton did attempt suicide by swallowing the acid, but it failed to kill him. Lindblom and Weston alerted a neighboring farm of the attack. Weston then returned to the studio and used a garden hose to help extinguish the flames. His efforts saved the studio portion of the building and the many Wright manuscripts. Eventually, neighbors arrived to assist in putting out the fire and to search for survivors. Iowa County Sheriff John Williams located Carlton and arrested him. Carlton was transferred to the county jail in Dodgeville. Gertrude was found in a nearby field, apparently unaware of her husband's intentions. She was dressed in travel clothes, expecting to catch a train to Chicago with Julian to seek a new job. Gertrude was released from police custody shortly after the incident. She was sent to Chicago with $7 and was never heard from again. The hydrochloric acid that Carlton ingested failed to kill him, but did badly burn his esophagus, which made it difficult for him to ingest food. Carlton was indicted on August 16 and was charged with the murder of Mamah Borthwick, the only death that was directly witnessed by a survivor. Carlton entered a not guilty plea. Forty-seven days after the fire, before the case could be heard, Carlton died of starvation in his cell. Bodies of the dead and injured were brought to Tan-y-Deri, the nearby home of Wright's sister, Jane Porter. Wright returned to Taliesin that night with his son John and Edwin Cheney. Cheney brought the remains of his children back to Chicago while Wright buried Mamah Borthwick on the grounds of nearby Unity Chapel (the chapel of the mother's side of his family). Heartbroken over the loss of his lover, Wright did not mark the grave because he could not bear to be reminded of the tragedy. He also did not hold a funerary service for Borthwick, although he did fund and attend services for his employees. Wright struggled with the loss of Borthwick, experiencing symptoms of conversion disorder: insomnia, weight loss, and temporary blindness. After a few months of recovery, aided by his sister Jane Porter, Wright moved to an apartment he rented in Chicago at 25 Cedar Street. The attack also had a profound effect on Wright's design principles; biographer Robert Twombly writes that his Prairie School period ended after the loss of Borthwick. Within a few months of his recovery, Wright began work on rebuilding Taliesin. The new complex was mostly identical to the original building. The dam was rebuilt; Wright added an observation platform, perhaps inspired by the one he designed in Baraboo. Later, he built a hydroelectric generator in an unsuccessful effort to make Taliesin completely self-sufficient. The generator was built in the style of a Japanese temple. Within only a few years, parts of the structure eroded away. It was demolished in the 1940s. In the new Taliesin, Wright worked to repair his tarnished reputation. He secured a commission to design the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan; when the building was undamaged following the 1923 earthquake, Wright's reputation was restored. Although he later expanded the agricultural wing, Wright spent little time at the second Taliesin house, often living near his construction sites abroad. Instead of serving as a full-time residence, Wright treated Taliesin like an art museum for his collection of Asian works. Wright only truly lived at Taliesin II starting in 1922, after his work at the Imperial Hotel was completed. In 1914 while designing the residence after the first devastating fire, Wright received a sympathetic letter from Miriam Noel, a fan of his architecture. Wright exchanged correspondence with the wealthy divorcee and met with her at his Chicago office. Wright was quickly infatuated, and the two began a relationship. By Spring 1915, Taliesin II was completed and Noel moved there with Wright. Wright's first wife Catherine finally granted him a divorce in 1922, meaning that Wright could marry Noel a year later. Although Wright admired Noel's erratic personality at first, her behavior (later identified as schizophrenia) led to a miserable life together at Taliesin. They married in November 1923, but Noel left Wright by the spring of 1924. On April 20, 1925, Wright returned from eating dinner in the detached dining room when he noticed smoke billowing from his bedroom. By that time of night, most of the employees had returned home; only a driver and one apprentice were left in the complex. Unlike the first Taliesin fire, Wright was able to get help immediately. However, the fire quickly spread due to high winds. Despite the efforts of Wright and his neighbors to extinguish the flame, the living quarters of the second Taliesin were quickly destroyed. However, the workrooms where Wright kept his architectural drafts were spared. According to Wright's autobiography, the fire appeared to have begun near a telephone in his bedroom. Wright also mentioned a lightning storm approaching immediately before noticing the fire. Wright scholars speculate that the storm may have caused an electrical surge through the telephone system, sparking the fire. Wright was deeply in debt following the destruction of Taliesin II. Aside from debts owed on the property, his divorce from Noel forced Wright to sell much of his farm machinery and livestock. Wright was also forced to sell his prized Japanese prints at half value to pay his debts. The Bank of Wisconsin foreclosed on Taliesin in 1927 and Wright was forced to move to La Jolla, California. Shortly before the bank was to begin an auction on the property, Wright's former client Darwin Martin conceived a scheme to save the property. He formed a company called Frank Lloyd Wright Incorporated to issue stock on Wright's future earnings. Many of Wright's former clients and students purchased stock in Wright to raise $70,000. The company successfully bid on Taliesin for $40,000, returning it to Wright. Wright returned to Taliesin in the winter of 1928 and began to rebuild the complex, which he named Taliesin III, shortly afterward. Wright's interaction with Taliesin lasted for the rest of his life, and eventually, he purchased the surrounding land, creating an estate of 593 acres (2.4 km²). Some of Wright's best-known buildings and most ambitious designs were created at Taliesin III. Works completed during this period include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the First Unitarian Society Meeting House, and Price Tower; he designed "The Illinois", a mile-high building, there in 1956. In its final form, the Taliesin III building measured 37,000 square feet (3,400 m2). All Wright buildings on the property combine for 75,000 square feet (7,000 m2), just short of 2 acres (0.81 ha), on 600 acres (240 ha) of land. Wright inherited the Hillside Home School when it became insolvent in 1915. The building sat empty until 1928, when Wright conceived the idea of hosting a school there. He issued a proposal to the University of Wisconsin that would have created the Hillside Home School for the Allied Arts; however, the plan was later abandoned. In 1932, the Wrights instead established the private Taliesin Fellowship, where fifty to sixty apprentices could come to Taliesin to study under the architect's mentorship. Students helped him develop the estate at a time when Wright received few commissions for his work. Once he began Taliesin West, a winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1937, Wright and the fellowship "migrated" between the two homes each year. Notable fellows include Paolo Soleri, Shao Fang Sheng, Edgar Tafel, and Paul Tuttle. Wright did not consider the fellowship a formal school, instead viewing it as a benevolent educational institution. He also worked to ensure G.I. Bill eligibility for returning World War II veterans. The town of Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Wright became embroiled in a legal dispute over his claim of tax exemption. A trial judge agreed with the town, stating that, since apprentices did much of Wright's work, it was not solely a benevolent institution. Wright fought the case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. When Wright lost the case there in 1954, he threatened to abandon the estate. However, he was persuaded to stay after some friends raised $800,000 to cover the back taxes at a benefit dinner. In 1940, Frank Lloyd Wright, his third wife Olgivanna, and his son-in-law William Wesley Peters formed the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Upon Wright's death on April 9, 1959, ownership of the Taliesin estate in Spring Green, as well as Taliesin West, passed into the hands of the foundation. The Taliesin Fellowship continued to use the Hillside School as The School of Architecture at Taliesin. The fellowship allowed tours of the school, but initially did not permit visitation of the house or other grounds. When the group spent two summers in Switzerland, rumors started that they were planning on selling the house to S. C. Johnson, a former Wright client. Instead, the fellowship sold a surrounding piece of land to a developer associated with the company, intending to develop a tourist complex. The 3,000-acre (1,200 ha) resort included an eighteen-hole golf course, restaurant, and a visitor's center. On January 7, 1976, Taliesin was recognized as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) District by the National Park Service. The nine properties contributing to the district are the landscape, Taliesin III, Hillside Home School, the Hillside Playhouse, the dam, Romeo and Juliet Windmill, Midway Barn, the pool and gardens in the courtyard, and Tan-Y-Deri. This designation also listed the property in the National Register of Historic Places. A National Historic Landmark is a site deemed to have "exceptional value to the nation." In the late 1980s, Taliesin and Taliesin West were together nominated as a World Heritage Site, a UNESCO designation for properties with special worldwide significance. The nomination was rejected because the organization wanted to see a larger nomination with more Wright properties. In 2008, the National Park Service submitted the Taliesin estate along with nine other Frank Lloyd Wright properties to a tentative list for World Heritage Status, which the National Park Service says is "a necessary first step in the process of nominating a site to the World Heritage List." After revised proposals, the properties were inscribed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" in July 2019. In 1987, the National Park Service evaluated the 1,811 NHLs nationwide for historical integrity and threat of damage. Taliesin was declared a "Priority 1" NHL, a site that is "seriously damaged or imminently with such damage." Furthermore, the site was listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of America's Most Endangered Places in 1994, citing its "water damage, erosion, foundation settlement and wood decay." Taliesin Preservation, Inc. (TPI), a non-profit organization, was established in 1991 to restore Taliesin. On June 18, 1998, a severe storm damaged the estate. Heavy rains caused the drainage system to fail and a cascade of water surged over the retaining wall. This caused a mudslide, damaging the estate's foundation. Furthermore, the large oak tree at the center of the courtyard fell down on top of the house. The next year, another storm collapsed a tunnel underneath the studio wing. A 1999 grant from Save America's Treasures helped defray costs to re-roof Taliesin III, to stabilize its foundation, and to connect it to a local sewage treatment plant. Over $11 million has been spent on the rehabilitation of Taliesin since 1998. Unfortunately, its preservation is "fraught with epic difficulties", because Wright never thought of it as a series of buildings with a long-term future. It was built by inexperienced students, without solid foundations. Financing renovations has been challenging because revenue from Taliesin visitation has been lower than projected. TPI provides tours from May 1 through October 31. In April and November, the association provides only an exterior shuttle and walking tour. Because the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation owns the property, it is inaccessible outside the confines of a tour. Roughly 25,000 people visit Taliesin each year. Architectural historian James F. O'Gorman compares Taliesin to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, calling it "not a mere building but an entire environment in which man, architecture and nature form a harmonious whole." He continues that the building is an expression of Romanticism influence in architecture. William Barillas, in an assay of the Prairie School movement, agrees with O'Gorman's assessment and calls Taliesin "the ultimate prairie house." InTaliesin 1911–1914, a collection of essays about the first house, the authors and editor conclude that Taliesin was "Wright's architectural self portrait." In a 2009 publication for the Thoreau Society, Naomi Uechi notes thematic similarities between the architecture of Taliesin and the concept of simplicity advocated by philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Neil Levine highlighted the abstract nature of the complex, comparing it to the works of Pablo Picasso.

Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, commonly referred to as Jacobs I, is a single family home located at 441 Toepfer Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Designed by noted American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, it was constructed in 1937 and is considered by most to be the first Usonian home. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003. The house and several other properties by Wright were inscribed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" in July 2019. The Jacobs House is located in a residential area southwest of downtown Madison, on the east side of Toepfer Avenue between Birch and Euclid Avenues. It is a modest single-story structure, its exterior finished in a combination of brick, horizontal boarding, and glass doors, the latter opening from the rear of the house. It is covered by a flat roof and rests on a concrete pad foundation. Its interior space is just 1,500 square feet (140 m2), and has two bedrooms. The house's original heating system consisted of steam heating pipes laid in the sand base that underlies the main concrete pad. The furnace that provided the steam heat was located in a small basement space under the kitchen. Madison newspaperman Herbert Jacobs, a Wright acquaintance, challenged the architect to design and build a home for $5,000 (equivalent to $87,141 in 2018). Wright designed an L-shaped structure with an open floor plan and two bedrooms. To economize construction costs Wright developed a 2 1⁄4-inch-thick (57 mm) plywood sandwich wall for use on this house. Rumor maintains that redirected bricks from the Johnson Wax Building ultimately helped keep final construction costs at $5,500. The Jacobs family moved into the house after construction but quickly outgrew the two-bedroom ranch. Herbert Jacobs commissioned Wright to build a second home, Jacobs II. The family moved there in the late 1940s. Over the following decades the house passed ownership and was exposed to modifications and maintenance techniques of variable historical value. A multi-year restoration project began in 1983, restoring the house to its 1937 appearance and updating worn and inefficient building systems. The current owner opens the house for tours through the Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Program, Inc. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003. It and several other properties by Wright were inscribed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" in July 2019.

The Frederick C. Robie House is a U.S. National Historic Landmark on the campus of the University of Chicago in the neighborhood of Hyde Park in Chicago, Illinois, at 5757 S. Woodlawn Avenue on the South Side. It was designed and built between 1908 and 1910 by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and is renowned as the greatest example of the Prairie School style, the first architectural style that was uniquely American. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on November 27, 1963 and was on the very first National Register of Historic Places list of October 15, 1966. The Robie House is one of the best known examples of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style of architecture. The term was coined by architectural critics and historians (not by Wright) who noticed how the buildings and their various components owed their design influence to the landscape and plant life of the midwest prairie of the United States. Typical of Wright's Prairie houses, he designed not only the house, but all of the interiors, the windows, lighting, rugs, furniture and textiles. As Wright wrote in 1910, "it is quite impossible to consider the building one thing and its furnishings another. ... They are all mere structural details of its character and completeness." The projecting cantilevered roof eaves, continuous bands of art-glass windows, and the use of Roman brick emphasize the horizontal, which had rich associations for Wright. The horizontal line reminded him of the American prairie and was a line of repose and shelter, appropriate for a house. The exterior walls are double-wythe construction of a Chicago common brick core with a red-orange iron-spotted Roman brick veneer. To further emphasize the horizontal of the bricks, the horizontal joints were filled with a cream-colored mortar and the small vertical joints were filled with brick-colored mortar. From a distance, this complex and expensive tuckpointing creates an impression of continuous lines of horizontal color and minimizes the appearance of individual bricks. The design of the art glass windows is an abstract pattern of colored and clear glass using Wright's favorite 30 and 60-degree angles. Wright used similar designs in tapestries inside the house and for gates surrounding the outdoor spaces and enclosing the garage courtyard. Robie's generous budget allowed Wright to design a house with a largely steel structure, which accounts for the minimal deflection of the eaves. The planter urns, copings, lintels, sills and other exterior trimwork are of Bedford limestone. In plan, the house is designed as two large rectangles that seem to slide by one another. Mr. Wright referred to the rectangle on the southwest portion of the site, which contains the principal living spaces of the house, as "the major vessel." On the first floor are the "billiards" room (west end) and children's playroom (east end). The billiards room provided access to a large walk-in safe and a storage area built underneath the front porch projection at the west end of the site. The billiards and playroom open into a small passage and doors near the center of the building to an enclosed garden on the south side of the building. Another door from the playroom opens into the courtyard on the east end of the site. On the second floor are the entry hall at the top of the central stairway, the living room (west end) and the dining room (east end). Built-in inglenook bench cabinetry originally separated the entry hallway from the living room. The living and dining rooms flow into one another along the south side of the building and open through a series of twelve French doors containing art glass panels to an exterior balcony running the length of the south side of the building that overlooks the enclosed garden. The west end of the living room contains a “prow” with art glass windows and two art glass doors that open onto the west porch beneath the cantilevered roof. Wright intended that the users of the building move freely from the interior space to the exterior space. The rectangle on the northeast portion of the site, called "the minor vessel," contains the more functional and service-related rooms of the house. On the first floor is the main door and entrance hall (west end) from which a stairway leads to the second floor living and dining rooms. A half bath is located on the north side of the entrance hall. Further east are a coat closet and back stairway, the boiler room, laundry room, and coal storage room, followed by a small workshop, half bath, and a three-car garage. The westernmost bay of the garage originally contained a mechanic’s pit, and the eastern most bay contained equipment to wash and clean automobiles. On the second floor of the minor vessel is a guest bedroom above the entrance hall and an adjoining full bath. East of the back stairway are the kitchen and butler’s pantry, and the servants’ sitting room. Two bedrooms and a full bathroom above the garage complete the quarters for the live-in servants. The third floor overlaps the major and minor vessels in the center of the building. Wright referred to the third floor as the “belvedere,” the “place in command of beautiful views.” The south side of the third floor contains the master bedroom, dressing area, a full bathroom, and, through a small closet and an art glass door, a balcony facing south and west. Two additional bedrooms and a full bathroom are located on the north side of this floor. All of the windows on this level contain art glass panels. Dresser drawers are built-in to the walls of the bedrooms underneath the windows, and project into the eave spaces. The entire building is approximately 9,062 square feet (841.9 m2). The chimney mass containing four fireplaces—one in the billiards room, playroom, living room and master bedroom—and the main stairway from the entrance hall to the second floor living and dining rooms rise through the center of the house, from which the rest of the building radiates. The chimney mass is constructed of the same brick and limestone as the exterior. The front door and main entrance is partially hidden on the northwest side of the building beneath an overhanging balcony in order to create a sense of privacy and protection for the family. The entrance hall itself is low-ceilinged and dark, but the stairs to the second floor create a sense of anticipation as the visitor moves upward. Once upstairs, the light filled living and dining rooms create a sharp contrast to the dark entrance hall making the living and dining rooms seem even more special. These two rooms are separated by the central chimney mass, but the spaces are connected along their south sides, and the chimney mass has an opening above the fireplace through which the rooms are visually connected. These features unite the two spaces, creating an openness of plan which, for Wright, was a metaphor for the openness of American political and social life. As with all Prairie houses, Wright designed the light fixtures for the Robie House. Throughout the house, wall sconces can be found in the shape of a hemispherical shade suspended beneath a square bronze fixture. On the second floor living and dining rooms, spherical globes within wooden squares are integrated into the ceiling trim, further tying the two spaces together visually. Soffit lighting running the length of the north and south sides of the living and dining rooms, as well as soffit lighting in the prows of the living and dining rooms, are covered with Wright-designed wooden grilles, backed with translucent colored glass diffusers. Because these lights are all independently operable, different effects can be created within these spaces. Finally, a Wright-designed table lamp with an art glass shade stood on a Wright-designed library table in the living room. The steel beams in the ceilings and floors carry most of the building's weight to piers at the east and west ends. As a result, the exterior walls have little structural function, and thus are filled with doors and windows containing art glass panels. The house contains 174 art glass window and door panels in 29 different designs. Although Wright occasionally designed art glass using stylized forms from nature, the designs of the Robie House art glass are possibly just abstract geometric forms. Another important reason for the glass was to make the interior seem bigger; he made it feel more spacy and airy by adding large and numerous windows and stained glass. The steel structure also eliminates the need for internal structural columns and walls, accenting the open plan Wright favored. Wright also designed the furniture, carpets, and textiles for most Prairie houses. However, Wright-designed furniture in the Robie House was only constructed for the entrance hall, the living and dining rooms, guest bedroom, and one bed for the third-floor bedrooms. Some of these pieces are attributed to Wright's interior design collaborator George Mann Niedecken. Robie’s financial situation following his father’s death may be the explanation for why the entire house was not furnished with furniture of Wright’s designs. Most of the original furniture is currently in the collection of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, although only the dining room table and chairs are on more or less permanent display. One of the most striking pieces of the furniture designed by Wright for the Robie House is a sofa with extended armrests, echoing the cantilevers of the exterior roof of the building, which effectively create side tables on each side of the sofa. The Wright-designed sofa has been on loan since 1982 from the Smart Museum to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and is on display as part of the furnishings in the reconstructed living room of the Francis W. Little House (1915) located in the museum. Miniature cantilevers can also be found in the shelves of the built-in dining room buffet and a food preparation island in the kitchen.

The Aline Barnsdall Hollyhock House is a building in the East Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a residence for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, built in 1919–1921. The building is now the centerpiece of the city's Barnsdall Art Park. As with many of Wright's residences, it has an "introverted" exterior with small windows, and is not easy to decode from the outside. The house is arranged around a central courtyard with one side open to form a kind of theatrical stage (never used as such), and a complex system of split levels, steps and roof terraces around that courtyard. The design features exterior walls that are tilted back at 85 degrees (which helps provide a "Mayan" appearance sometimes referred to as the Mayan Revival style), leaded art glass in the windows, a grand fireplace with a large abstract bas-relief, and a moat. Water is meant to flow from a pool in the courtyard through an underground tunnel to this inside moat, and out again to a fountain. The front doors are stepped similarly to the entryway. The split doors rest on pins and swing open easily despite their massive weight. The keyhole is concealed with a decorative flap. The hollyhock is used as a central theme to the house, with many symmetrical decorations adapting the plant's general appearance. Planters are decorated with the motif and filled with the plants themselves, and Wright's stained glass windows feature a highly stylized hollyhock pattern. An interesting feature is the glass corners, an early Wright idea later used at Fallingwater. Hollyhock House features an entertainment room immediately to the right of the entrance. This room contains possibly the first built-in entertainment center, complete with LP-sized cabinets along the floor. Other notable rooms include a child's play area as well as a modernist kitchen, which long housed the museum gift shop. Like many houses designed by Wright, it proved to be better as an aesthetic work than as a livable dwelling. Water tended to flow over the central lawn and into the living room, and the flat roof terraces were conceived without an understanding of Los Angeles' rains. The cantilevered concrete also has not stood up well to the area's earthquakes. There were a considerable number of revisions. Two smaller structures, called Studio Residence A and B, were built on the grounds. Residence A still stands. The client also commissioned a private kindergarten which was never built. The house and grounds were used as the temple of the Piranha Women in 1989's Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. The FOHH provide an increased public awareness of Frank Lloyd Wright, Aline Barnsdall, and Hollyhock House through public tours, special events, and the Friends of Hollyhock House Library. The library is a small research library that contains books and articles on Frank Lloyd Wright and Aline Barnsdall. All docents are members of the Friends of Hollyhock House.

Taliesin West was architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and school in the desert from 1937 until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. Today it is the main campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and houses the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Open to the public for tours, Taliesin West is located on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. The complex drew its name from Wright's summer home, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Wright felt very strongly about the connection to the desert. He said: “Arizona needs its own architecture… Arizona’s long, low, sweeping lines, uptilting planes. Surface patterned after such abstraction in line and color as find 'realism' in the patterns of the rattlesnake, the Gila monster, the chameleon, and the saguaro, cholla or staghorn – or is it the other way around—are inspiration enough.” The structure's walls are made of local desert rocks, stacked within wood forms, filled with concrete. Wright always favored using the materials readily available rather than those that must be transported to the site. In Wright’s own words: “There were simple characteristic silhouettes to go by, tremendous drifts and heaps of sunburned desert rocks were nearby to be used. We got it all together with the landscape…” The flat surfaces of the rocks were placed outward facing and large boulders filled the interior space so concrete could be conserved. Natural light also played a major part in the design. In the drafting room, Wright used translucent canvas to act as a roof (later replaced by plastic because of the intense wear from the Arizona sun). In the south-facing dining room, Wright did not take the masonry walls from floor to ceiling, and designed the roof to hang past the walls preventing unwanted sun rays from penetrating but allowing for horizontal light to pass through the room. Wright believed natural light aided the work environment he had his apprentices in, keeping the inside of his building in touch with the natural surroundings. Every part of Taliesin West bears Frank Lloyd Wright’s personal touch. Upon every return after a summer in Wisconsin Wright would grab a hammer and immediately make his way through the complex. He would walk through each room making changes or shouting orders to apprentices closely following with wheelbarrows and tools. He constantly changed and improved on his design fixing arising problems and addressing new situations. Throughout the years he added an addition to the dining room, the cabaret theatre, music pavilion and numerous other rooms. All of the furniture and decorations were designed by Wright and the majority built by apprentices. A brilliant aspect of Wright's design is the cabaret theatre. Built with six sides, out of the standard rock-concrete mixture, in an irregularly hexagonal shape, the theatre provides its occupants with what someone has called "95% acoustic perfection". Someone sitting in the back row can hear the lightest whisper from a speaker on stage. During his lifetime, Wright continually altered and added to the complex of buildings, all of which were constructed by students. Many of Wright's most famous buildings were designed in the drafting room at Taliesin West, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and Grady Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University in Tempe. Taliesin West continues as the headquarters of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and as the winter home for the School of Architecture. As in Wright's time, students and faculty spend the summers in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982. In 2008, the U.S. National Park Service submitted Taliesin West along with nine other Frank Lloyd Wright properties to a tentative list for World Heritage Status. The 10 sites have been submitted as one single site. The January 22, 2008 press release from the National Park Service website announcing the nominations states that, "The preparation of a Tentative List is a necessary first step in the process of nominating a site to the World Heritage List."