Towering Inferno

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship

Comments (0) By Greg Goldin Wednesday, Sep 13 2006

...continued from page 1

For such a man, and such accomplishments, there would always be a steady supply of aspiring acolytes. Once at Taliesin, apprentices were subject to Wright’s all-encompassing will. Unflinchingly, he would tell you how to dress or whom to marry. He would mete out favors; he would instigate punishments. He was the master. To live in a world of one great man’s conception, apart from the confusion and ambiguity of the outside, was like a gift. To some, the confinement was liberating. Others simply fled.

In such a place, though, there could be no room for a competitor hawking self-abnegation as a form of personal fulfillment. Frank Lloyd Wright called Gurdjieff “the Devil and the God,” and he was abundantly clear when he told his wife, “You’re not going to turn this into a Gurdjieff Institute. Not while I am alive.” Olgivanna had to wait until he died, and even then, The Fellowship says, she failed. Taliesin is forever associated with Wright. Gurdjieff remains on the margins, where he belongs.

Illustration by Mitch Handsone

More About

THE FELLOWSHIP: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & the Taliesin Fellowship | By ROGER FRIEDLAND and HAROLD ZELLMAN | HarperCollins | 664 pages | $35 hardcover