Taliesin West

Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home, studio, and architecture school sits on the lower slopes of the McDowell Mountains north-east of central Scottsdale. Wright considered the building his greatest work and described the desert site as an organism — every angle of the building is calculated against the slope and the sun. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the centre of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Guided tours run several times a day; the 90-minute "Insights" tour gets you into the drafting room, the cabaret theatre, the living room with its sandstone fireplace, and most of the grounds. Even visitors with no prior interest in architecture tend to come out converted. Book in advance and bring a hat — much of the tour is outdoors.

things to do sight architecture
A story
Wright first camped on the site in 1937 with his apprentices and built much of the original studio from desert rubble — slabs of red quartzite cemented with sand from the wash. He kept a canvas roof on the drafting room for years because he liked the diffused light, and only replaced it with glass when his second wife Olgivanna insisted.