Taliesin West LED Smart Lighting Transformation
Wipliance Modernized This Historic UNESCO Site With Lutron + Ketra
Project Background
Taliesin West is a National Historic Landmark and one of eight Frank Lloyd Wright sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Located in Scottsdale, it is the living laboratory for the renowned architect's architectural and design contributions. Wright viewed architecture beyond the buildings themselves. He considered every detail, including light, sound, and space to improve quality of life, expertly bringing these elements together.
This property has seen several lighting-related innovations since its establishment in 1937. The original design incorporated no electricity, taking full advantage of natural light. Later, updates incorporated the advent of incandescent and, most recently, LED lighting and control.
Ketra Products Highlighted
- Lightbar Slim
- Lumaris Tape Light
- S30 Luminaire
- S38 Luminaire
The Challenge
Taliesin West needed modern lighting brought to an expansive estate filled with originally handcrafted fixtures. The historical significance of this property prevented any major modifications, so cutting into walls for wiring as in a typical lighting upgrade was not possible. Each of the fixtures, most of which were either created by Frank or his apprentices, had to be carefully disassembled and reassembled.
Our goal was to improve the color quality of the lighting and simplify managing all of the original fixtures for Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation staff and event hosts. Taliesin West is open to the public daily. We wanted daily operations to run smoothly, ensuring that visitors, whether in tour groups or at private events, had a good experience.
With Lutron's Ketra wireless technology, Wipliance made it possible to recreate the campfire glow of the evenings and complement the natural illumination that floods in during the day with bright white tones. It's even possible to add a splash of saturated colors to highlight the stone facades and showcase the property in new and exciting ways.
The goals
Utilize Lutron's Ketra Lighting and HomeWorks QSX control system to provide easily managed, high-fidelity lighting at Taliesin West.
- Install Lumaris Tape Light in the drafting studio to mimic daylight in the evenings and complement the unique canvas design
- Carefully re-lamp handcrafted fixtures originally designed by Wright
- Install Lightbar Slim in the boardroom for additional layers of light in shelving for accent
- Add wire-free Palladiom shades for natural light control in a key meeting area
- Provide easily accessible control over common scenes and individual zones
Our approach
When restoring a historical property, the utmost care and precision must be taken. Our team had to carefully reassemble one-of-a-kind light fixtures and utilize the existing wiring structures, in addition to being incredibly careful with irreplaceable flooring, finishes, and furniture.
We were unable to run any new wiring, so Ketra's wireless technology helped us conquer a major hurdle. We were able to address whole areas of the property with customized universal scenes that made event prep or general day-to-day operations much easier for the team at Taliesin West.
Testimonial from the 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 and 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, it 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."
Credit for Historical Images of Taliesin West:
The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives
(The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York, NY)