Seeing Red

Red is probably my favorite color. If you take a look at a lot of my accessory items, they are red. Red wallet, Circa notebook, Air Pods case, travel jewelry case, thing that you use to hold your book open flat, Rocket Blower for camera cleaning, check book cover, reading glasses – all red. Nothing major, but all small pieces that have this accent color. I’m not the only one under its spell. Frank Lloyd Wright shared this love of red and as I have been going through my photos at Taliesin in Spring Green Wisconsin, the more the series coalesced around it.

So far as I know, FLW has never stated why he used so much red in his designs. Some say it’s because the paint was cheap, but I think he just liked it. These shots are looking down at the dining hall at what became his architecture school. The chairs look killer – both in term of design and comfort, or lack thereof. Clearly Frank didn’t want the students lingering over their meals.

This next one is about a third of the drafting room. Isn’t it great? The guide giving the tour I was on said that the design of the supports and beams were to mimic a forest and it kind of does, but resembles a timber plantation more than a forest. Still it’s a great space to be in. The overall palette is subdued and low key, but the red adds little punches of excitement and delineation. I’m not sure you’d really pay attention to the triangle supports if they weren’t accented in red. The design is reinforced and repeated a way that makes you look again.

All of these are taken handheld when the opportunity presented itself. Mostly on these kinds of things I spend a lot of time waiting for people to get out of the way. While the guide talked people sat down at the stools to listen and I had to wait for them to clear out. I’m used to being the straggler in any group when I have a camera.

Yes, the clone and remove tools are good, but it’s sometimes better just to wait. In a couple cases though I had to nicely beg people to move so I could take the photos I wanted. The lamps are especially photogenic, moreso since Pixar has adopted a similar lamp as its mascot/logo. Students used the room into the computer design age, but it has been purposely restored to a 1950s era look for the tour. The desks and stools are made of plywood, a material Wright was fond of, and mostly assembled by the students themselves. As a matter of fact most or all of the buildings on the site were done by Wright or the students.

Funny bit about this next shot though. I stood here for a long time waiting for a guy who just couldn’t possibly walk or stand for more than a minute to move. A couple of other folks had already done so as the guide headed to another room, but not this guy. So I asked him and he did and right after a couple of people stood exactly where I was and took the same photo with their phones. I laughed. It is a good composition though. I even adjusted a lamp or two for better placement.

You might be noticing all of the lovely light inside the room and this is why –

Those are the only windows on either side of the space – their high placement meant no harsh shadows or highlights, and distractions either (no daydreaming at the view). The light colored ceiling reflected the light back down into the room, softening the most intense noonday light. Those red triangles? They’re just there to look good.