Following a five-year, $1.1 million restoration project, the Hillside Theater at @taliesinwi is a STUNNER.
Every August I head out to the driftless valley of Wisconsin to teach a few workshops and to photograph the Taliesin Estate. For the past few years, I have focused on individual sites on the estate instead of trying to photograph it all. Last year was the drafting studio. This year? It was the theater.
When I say “focused” I do mean capturing it through my camera of course but that word also means experiencing the space without my camera, sitting quietly and taking in the space.
My biggest takeaway from this space after its restoration? That it was done in a way that kept “the spirit” of the space unchanged. You can have the most perfect, most beautiful space but if you restore the spirit out of the space it’s not worth it, especially in a Wright design. Massive applause and THANK YOU to both @wrighttaliesin and @taliesinwi for restoring this historic space and keeping the “Wright” spirit inside alive for all to experience. Sorry for the pun, it was necessary:)

Midway Barn at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin

This Wisconsin valley with the spring-water stream winding down as its center line has been looked forward to or back upon by me and mine from all over the world, as home.

And I come back from the distant, strange, and beautiful places that I used to read about when I was a boy, and wonder about; yes, every time I come back here it is with the feeling there is nothing anywhere better than this is.

More dramatic elsewhere, perhaps more strange, more thrilling, more grand, too, but nothing that picks you up in its arms and so gently, almost lovingly, cradles you as do these southwestern Wisconsin hills.

Excerpt from WHY I LOVE WISCONSIN by Frank Lloyd Wright….and so true for many of us.
📷: Midway Barn, Taliesin, Spring Green.