Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fabled School of Architecture at Taliesin Will Abruptly Close After Training Rising Architects for Nearly 90 Years

The architecture school founded
by Frank Lloyd Wright nearly 90 years ago to develop young talents
in his image will close for good this summer.

Dan Schweiker, the board chair
of the School of Architecture at
Taliesin, said
the “gut-wrenching” decision was made after the board was unable to “reach an
agreement with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to keep the school
open.”

The foundation owns the two
properties at Taliesin (in Spring Green, Wisconsin) and
Taliesin West (in Scottsdale, Arizona) out of which the school
operates.

“This is a sad and somber day
for our school, our students and staff, and the architecture
community,” Schweiker added. “We did everything possible to fight
for its survival but due to other forces it was not meant to
be.”

The current semester will be the
school’s last before it officially ceases operations in June. The
institution is now in discussions with the Herberger Institute for
Design and the Arts at Arizona State University to work out a plan
to transfer the 30 students currently enrolled at Taliesin so they
may complete their degrees.

In a statement issued to Architect magazine, the Frank Lloyd
Wright Foundation said the boards of the two organizations had been
in talks to develop a business plan to keep the struggling school
afloat through July, 2021.

“The foundation had reached an agreement with the leaders of the
[school’s] board that would have allowed for second- and third-year
students to complete their education at Taliesin and Taliesin West,
and we are disappointed that it was not approved by the full
[school] board,” the Wright foundation’s president and CEO, Stuart
Graff, said in the statement.

Wright founded the school in 1932, and taught there until his death in
1959. In 2017, the school, which was formerly called the Frank
Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, was renamed after it split
from the architect’s foundation owing to a decision by
the Higher Learning Commission that accredited schools could
no longer be financially dependent on separate
organizations. 

“In an age of so much
turbulence, this school and its students provided so much peace,”
said Jacki Lynn, a school board member. “It breaks my heart that
all the parties could not come together to ensure the proper legacy
of this great American.” 

The post Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fabled School of Architecture
at Taliesin Will Abruptly Close After Training Rising Architects
for Nearly 90 Years appeared first on artnet News.