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Taliesin West

Revitalizing the Light at Frank Lloyd Wright's Iconic Masterpiece with Lutron + Ketra

Background

Taliesin West is a Unesco World Heritage site, and the living laboratory for Frank Lloyd Wright's contribution to architecture and design. This property has seen several innovations in lighting throughout its' nearly 100 years of storied history- from designing the structure with no electricity to take advantage of natural light, to the advent of incandescent and eventually updating to LED lighting.

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The challenge

There was a need at Taliesin West to improve the color quality of the lighting to reflect its' natural surroundings, and to make control of many fixtures in an expansive property easy for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation staff and event hosts to manage. Wipliance utilized the Ketra lighting system to recreate the campfire glow of the evenings, a bright white to compliment the natural light that floods in during the day- and even a splash of saturated colors to highlight the stone facades and showcase the property in new and exciting ways. Because of the historical significance of this property, no major modifications were allowed. All original fixtures (most of which were either created by Frank or his apprentices) had to be carefully disassembled and reassembled. 

Taliesin West is open to the public daily; from tour groups to private events, our objective was to not disturb the day-to-day operations of the property or detract from the visitors' experience.

View the Lutron Case Study

The goals

Utilize Lutron's Ketra Lighting and Homeworks QSX Control System to deliver high fidelity lighting that is easily managable by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation's staff. 

  • Install Lumaris Tape Light in the drafting studio to mimic daylight in the evenings and compliment the unique canvas design
  • Carefully re-lamp handcrafted fixtures originally designed by Wright
  • Install Lightbar Slim in the board room for additional layers of light in shelving for accent
  • Add Palladiom Wirefree shades for natural light control in a key meeting area.
  • Provide easily accessible control over common scenes and individual zones.

Our approach

Careful Attention to Detail

When you are working with a historical property on a restoration, the utmost care & precision must be taken. Carefully reassembling one-of-a-kind light fixtures and utilizing existing wiring structures were some of the considerations that had to be taken, in addition to being incredibly careful with flooring, finishes and furniture that were irreplaceable. Our team was not able to run any new wiring- so Ketra's wireless technology helped us conquer a major hurdle, being able to address whole areas of the property with universal scenes that made event prep or general day-to-day operations much easier for the team at Taliesin West.

Comments from Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation:

"We think it would be a great injustice for Wright’s legacy to be confined to the past when his whole career is about helping to shape the future. And so we continue to work with industry leaders in the building and architecture space to embrace Wright’s principles using modern technology and take him out of the past plant him firmly in the present, with an eye toward the future.

"In looking for partners to do any work here, but particularly the type of work where we start to talk about new lighting that could embrace all kinds of wiring and other things, we have to have best-in-class partners that appreciate the sensitivity of the architecture, appreciate our mission to preserve this architecture and do their work in ways that are minimally invasive, that really respect the sensitivity of the space in which they’re working. And installing this Ketra lighting, because of the technology and because the team at Wipliance is so respectful of the legacy represented at Taliesin West, all of this lighting could be installed in ways that did no damage. Quite the opposite, because of the quality of light, improved the spaces at Taliesin West.

"We had an event, and everybody- many of whom had been here before- said the place had never looked more beautiful. That there was a quality to the light, suddenly at night you could see inside these warm and gently lit spaces and imagine what it was like for the apprentices in the darkness of a desert preserve with the starlit skies above you and these beautiful buildings. You just start to think about the world a bit differently. And when we give people the space to do that, we’ve achieved our mission and we are perpetuating Wright’s legacy."

"Every member of our staff was so complimentary of the respect that Wipliance paid to our visitors, to our staff- to make sure their experiences weren’t disrupted even as this work was taking place."

Stuart Graff, Former President/CEO, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

Credit for Historical Images of Taliesin West: 
The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives
(The Musum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York, NY)

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