DiTullo Architourism trip

If you follow me in instagram you know I’ve been hitting some architecturally significant sights in the Midwest this week. I had a couple of meetings in Chicago and a couple of more in Milwaukee, so we decided to make a trip out of it since my birthday was in-between and I always wanted to go to Taliesin. I put together a mega album of all of it. If you want to nerd out, there are lot of detail shots and different angles of some historic buildings. It was great to see a lot of core77 forum members on our travels as well! That was the best part… of course like the design nerd that I am, I pretty much have no pictures of people.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1586817531360887.1073741830.107741225935199&type=1&l=870bf6f01b

Michael;

It was great seeing you and talking about your new adventure. hope you had safe travels home.

Man, Taliesin looks completely insane. I wish some of the colors like mauve and forest green were different, but that’s probably what was good at the time. Sheer visual overload and rather homogenous design throughout but I know that’s the point!
That Milwaukee Calatrava is such a nice little building. Some of the materials don’t age very well but the sculptural concrete is so elegant, as is its position on the lake.

Thanks for sharing.

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Always wonderful to finally meet a forum friend in person! Great catching up with you.

It is pretty insane. I much prefer Taliesin West actually. That compound feels much more holistic, like it was all conceived at the same time. I appreciate the original Taliesin. The original building was actually built for his Aunts who ran a super progressive school called the Hill Side School. When they retired he took that over and made it the Taliesin School. His house (also called Taliesin) was built up the hill and partially burned down twice and both facilities where expanded countless times as the school grew. He also let the students design and build all kinds of experimental additions and renovations… they built them themselves and they weren’t exactly craftsman. The result is a bit schizophrenic, but also kind of awesome. Like an outsider artist architectural explosion. So it was great to finally see it.

I was there on what would have been Frank Lloyd Wright’s 150th birthday. I was pretty disappointed they didn’t do anything… not a balloon or a cupcake or a teeshirt that said 150… nothing. Seemed like a missed opportunity. Whomever is doing their social media is much more on it with FLW150 hash tags and liking and commenting on people who post about Wright, so I was a bit surprised there was nothing at the actually place, but I’m knit picking, it was great to be there. It was also my birthday so it felt like a nice place to spend the day and think about what I am doing with this new chapter of my life.

Thanks for posting that! When he talked about his work he often spoke about creating the architectural version of a symphony. It’s a nice analogy and it really comes alive in the Johnson building. It is definitely one of my favorites of his as well. Huge props to the Johnson Wax company for giving free tours 3 days a week of what is a functioning office building for them. It is their legal and finance department, so it is understandable that we were not allowed to take pictures. They also let us sit in all of the original furniture which is pretty crazy… the staff still uses it! This had to be a pretty early example of an open office. It was incredibly peaceful and quiet inside. One of the guys on the tour was a retired Johnson Wax employee with his grand kids. He said in the days of secretaries and typewriters the hum of all of the typing was actually melodic.

WOW. Thanks a lot for sharing the post.