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The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship
Frank Lloyd Wright was renowned during his life not only as an architectural genius, but as a subject of controversy -- from his radical design innovations to his turbulent private life, including the notorious mass murder that occurred at his Wisconsin estate, Taliesin, in 1914. Yet, as this landmark new book reveals, that estate also gave rise to one of the most fascinating and provocative experiments in American cultural history: the Taliesin Fellowship, an extraordinary architectural colony where Wright trained hundreds of devoted apprentices, while using them as the de facto architectural practice where all of his late masterpieces -- Fallingwater, Johnson Wax, the Guggenheim Museum -- were born.
A decade in the making, The Fellowship draws on hundreds of new and unpublished interviews, along with countless unseen documents from the Wright archives, to create a captivating portrait of Taliesin and the three mercurial figures at its center: Wright, his imperious wife Olgivanna Hinzenberg, and her spiritual master, the Greek-Armenian mystic Georgi Gurdjieff. Authors Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman reveal how the idealistic community of Taliesin became a kind of fiefdom, where young apprentices were both inspired and manipulated by the architect and his wife. They trace the decades-long war of wills between Wright and Olgivanna, in which organic architecture was pitted against esoteric spiritualism in a struggle for the soul of Taliesin. They chronicle Wright's perennial battles with clients, bankers, and the government, which suspected him of both communist and fascist sympathies. And through it all they tell the stories of Wright's devoted apprentices -- many of them gay men -- who found an uncertain refuge in the architect s Wisconsin and Arizona compounds, and who helped the master realize his dreamlike architectural visions, often at great personal cost.
Epic in scope yet intimate in its detail, The Fellowship is an unforgettable story of genius and ego, sex and violence, mysticism and utopianism -- a magisterial work of biography that will forever change how we think about Frank Lloyd Wright and his world.
A decade in the making, The Fellowship draws on hundreds of new and unpublished interviews, along with countless unseen documents from the Wright archives, to create a captivating portrait of Taliesin and the three mercurial figures at its center: Wright, his imperious wife Olgivanna Hinzenberg, and her spiritual master, the Greek-Armenian mystic Georgi Gurdjieff. Authors Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman reveal how the idealistic community of Taliesin became a kind of fiefdom, where young apprentices were both inspired and manipulated by the architect and his wife. They trace the decades-long war of wills between Wright and Olgivanna, in which organic architecture was pitted against esoteric spiritualism in a struggle for the soul of Taliesin. They chronicle Wright's perennial battles with clients, bankers, and the government, which suspected him of both communist and fascist sympathies. And through it all they tell the stories of Wright's devoted apprentices -- many of them gay men -- who found an uncertain refuge in the architect s Wisconsin and Arizona compounds, and who helped the master realize his dreamlike architectural visions, often at great personal cost.
Epic in scope yet intimate in its detail, The Fellowship is an unforgettable story of genius and ego, sex and violence, mysticism and utopianism -- a magisterial work of biography that will forever change how we think about Frank Lloyd Wright and his world.
689 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
120 people are currently reading
928 people want to read
About the author
Roger Friedland
13 books8 followersRoger Friedland is a cultural and religious sociologist who writes on love, sex and God, as well as the intersections of religion and politics around the world. Friedland works on institutional logics, on the ways in which ordinary domains of human activity depend on belief in goods which are beyond sense and reason. He is working with John Mohr and Henk Roose on the logics of love among American university students and with Janet Afary on the relationship of religion, gender and intimate life in seven Muslim-majority countries Friedland teaches in the departments of Religious Studies and Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently visiting professor at NYU Media, Culture and Communication.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
March 6, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2019
FLW was a phenomenal talent but probably a detestable human being. This is a biography/history of the man and the "school" he founded that puts everything out in the sunlight. I had a professor once that interviewed a student of FLW's for a job in his architectural firm. The student had been with FLW for 5 years and was asked what he had worked on during his time at Taliesin. The student responded, "the barn". He hadn't worked on the barn, he had worked in the barn. For 5 years he had milked FLW's cows and paid FLW for that privilege. A very interesting book.
April 18, 2014
My grandparents' house in Shorewood, WI was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and I grew up a fan of his work; I used to think the burning of Taliesin a sad, romantic story. Then I read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan and realized he wasn't that great of a guy; but I was intrigued and set out to read The Fellowship, which concentrates on his life after that fire, for 600 pages. So now I can say with certainty that I am no longer a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright's, also I'm not going to go out looking for more by Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman.
They compiled a lot of photographs and obviously researched a lot, but I didn't like their tone, it seemed as if they wanted to push an agenda, but never got to the point. From the beginning they were breathlessly proclaiming everyone to be so handsome and sensuous despite supplying photographic evidence quite to the contrary. It was hard to read about Frank Lloyd Wright's every single abusive, antisemitic, and sociopathic move and comment. It's incredible that there were so many different people involved in blustery ill-defined organic architecture and weird culty stuff. I did find it interesting that FLW's son John Lloyd Wright invented Lincoln Logs, and that Taliesin Fellowship drop-outs went on to excel in other arenas, like actor Anthony Quinn.
They compiled a lot of photographs and obviously researched a lot, but I didn't like their tone, it seemed as if they wanted to push an agenda, but never got to the point. From the beginning they were breathlessly proclaiming everyone to be so handsome and sensuous despite supplying photographic evidence quite to the contrary. It was hard to read about Frank Lloyd Wright's every single abusive, antisemitic, and sociopathic move and comment. It's incredible that there were so many different people involved in blustery ill-defined organic architecture and weird culty stuff. I did find it interesting that FLW's son John Lloyd Wright invented Lincoln Logs, and that Taliesin Fellowship drop-outs went on to excel in other arenas, like actor Anthony Quinn.
October 18, 2012
Half genius, half charlatan Frank Lloyd Wright devised The Fellowship as a means of saving his beloved Taliesin which he’d already lost three times, twice to fire and once to bankruptcy. Wright invariably found a savior to rescue him from vorays into speculations. The idea of The Fellowship, a group of paying resident students who would benefit from proximity to the master, may have germinated from Wright’s third wife Olgivanna’s experience with the Gurdjieff cult in France. Wright was also influenced by Gurdjieff as were his daughters Svetlana and Iovanna. Initially, Wright seemed to have little intention to instruct the students who served as laborers rebuilding Taliesin, the studio and in general farming tasks. They also built Taliesin West near Scottsdale, AZ. As some apprentices departed, Wright realized he’d need to have a more scholastic approach. Since he, himself, had no university degree nor license as an architect, he could not confer degrees upon the students. His magnetic personality and the originality of his architectural concepts kept many of the acolytes mesmerized. Wright’s career began as an associate of Louis Sullivan, grew with his Prairie House designs, and came to fruition in his later years with Fallingwaters, designated as the most beautiful house design (though lacking engineering expertise, Wright’s cantilever system was sharply criticized, and probably only succeeded as his students surreptitiously added more rebar to the cement, than Wright specified. Similar problems occurred with the Johnson Wax Building as the lilypad columns which upheld the structure were thought to be too weak; again his apprentices dealt with these problems, sometimes over Wright’s objections. In the case of the Johnson project, Wright was correct that the unusual design, strengthened with steel mesh rather than rods could hold five times the weight necessary. The glass rod skylights, beautiful as they were, leaked as did many of Wright’s roofs.) Overall, Wright was more artist and visionary of architecture than a pragmatic engineer, yet it is undeniable that his influence –for example the Usonian house which was the precursor of the ranch house that became the prototypical suburban home of the 50’s—has had worldwide influence. Always a controversial figure, he was recognized by the Architectural Society for his lifetime achievements, and typically, he took the occasion to criticize much modern architecture. The Fellowship, written in 2006, briefly covers Wright’s personal history up to the founding of The Fellowship. As a primary engine for Wright’s designs as well as producing the cash needed to pursue his goals, The Fellowship was seen by some outsiders as a cult, while being revered by many prominent individuals, especially avant garde devotees of Theosophy, Spiritualism and other such beliefs. Wright was inclined to manipulate these disciples, rather than succumb to their doctrines, though he was always interested in the revolutionary idea. He was too much of an egotist to wish to share the stage with another celebrity. Ayn Rand who had based her main character in The Fountainhead on Wright, upon meeting him was disillusioned as he was far from the idealistic ideologue she had imagined. Wright’s wife Olgivanna had a great deal of influence on the members of The Fellowship and following Wright’s death, she assumed control, including music and dance as an important venture, based on her Gurdjieffian ideas. With her death, The Fellowship declined, though the program exists to this day. Taliesin East and West have both come to prominence as tourist destinations to showcase the work of Wright and his followers.
April 25, 2016
This book took me forever to read. It's six hundred pages of tiny print, plus an extra one hundred pages of footnotes. You're probably wondering, "How could someone write seven hundred pages about an architect?"
That's the beauty of this book; it's not just about architecture; it's about a group of people seeking a higher power. Whether it's Frank Lloyd Wright creating "organic architecture" or his wife following a mystic, nearly all of the characters dedicate themselves to "the transformation of human consciousness", in one form or another. Some even turned it into a religious quest, with one of Frank's apprentices trying to find out "what this thing God is".
I'm also giving this book five stars because of all the work put into it. The authors spent at least six years gathering all of the research for their book. I respect anyone with that level of dedication.
That's the beauty of this book; it's not just about architecture; it's about a group of people seeking a higher power. Whether it's Frank Lloyd Wright creating "organic architecture" or his wife following a mystic, nearly all of the characters dedicate themselves to "the transformation of human consciousness", in one form or another. Some even turned it into a religious quest, with one of Frank's apprentices trying to find out "what this thing God is".
I'm also giving this book five stars because of all the work put into it. The authors spent at least six years gathering all of the research for their book. I respect anyone with that level of dedication.
July 28, 2010
Just took the Wright Plus Tour in Oak Park, IL this spring and wanted to learn more about FLLW... found out he was more of an SOB than I had imagined was possible. Had enough and lost interest in the book. I guess I love the art but not the artist.
The book is definitely worth reading if you want to know more about the person who was Frank Lloyd Wright. Just don't expect to like him!
The book is definitely worth reading if you want to know more about the person who was Frank Lloyd Wright. Just don't expect to like him!
July 13, 2013
Stunning Research. The authors gather from published sources and unpublished material, some from the archives of Taliesin and T. West. More spectacular is the material provided by interviews. Were it not for these authors, the stories of participants (documented as to who said what at the end) could have been lost to history. While there may be some faulty memories reporting and coloring of those who spoke on behalf of friends or relatives, I believe their sum total reflects the flavor of the life in this commune/cult.
Stunning Narrative. Often when two or more writers collaborate you can detect the separate voices. This is particularly true when the writers have different backgrounds. This text is seamless. The authors truly write with one voice.
Stunning Organization. When I began the book, I wondered why so much of the initial part was devoted to Gurjief, but as the story unfolds, you realize how deeply the FLW's work and Fellowship were influenced by this seemingly remote philosophy. It fully informs the later part of the story.
Stunning Story. The story is more dramatic than I had envisioned. The pacing is excellent. You see that Wright did not plan it this way, it evolved this way as a part of his personality, and later his third wife's drive. It's amazing that at 60 years old, he seems to be just winding up when so many others are winding down. At 90 he is still pursuing commissions with no signs of tiring.
I visited the Wisconsin Taliesin in the early 1980's. The place was empty, with one morose keeper of the flame receiving tourists. Our party (of two tourists) received something of a tour of this deserted, disappointing and needing repair facility. At this time, Olgivanna would have still been holding court in Taliesin West, which our tour guide described as a vibrant active workshop. Sadly, I remember with greater clarity the elaborate, the less meaningful, House on the Rock, another residential tourist attraction in the area.
The authors stick with their focus... the Fellowship... and do not dwell on the many tempting side issues such as a critique of the styles and the philosophies. I would have liked more about FLW's first 6 children, his parents and aunts, but this would have strayed from the focus and added more than one book could carry.
The book has a good layout with photographs placed with the material they support. The photos, particularly the portraits, add to the understanding of the text.
This is the kind of book that when it is finished, the reader needs time to digest it all.
Stunning Narrative. Often when two or more writers collaborate you can detect the separate voices. This is particularly true when the writers have different backgrounds. This text is seamless. The authors truly write with one voice.
Stunning Organization. When I began the book, I wondered why so much of the initial part was devoted to Gurjief, but as the story unfolds, you realize how deeply the FLW's work and Fellowship were influenced by this seemingly remote philosophy. It fully informs the later part of the story.
Stunning Story. The story is more dramatic than I had envisioned. The pacing is excellent. You see that Wright did not plan it this way, it evolved this way as a part of his personality, and later his third wife's drive. It's amazing that at 60 years old, he seems to be just winding up when so many others are winding down. At 90 he is still pursuing commissions with no signs of tiring.
I visited the Wisconsin Taliesin in the early 1980's. The place was empty, with one morose keeper of the flame receiving tourists. Our party (of two tourists) received something of a tour of this deserted, disappointing and needing repair facility. At this time, Olgivanna would have still been holding court in Taliesin West, which our tour guide described as a vibrant active workshop. Sadly, I remember with greater clarity the elaborate, the less meaningful, House on the Rock, another residential tourist attraction in the area.
The authors stick with their focus... the Fellowship... and do not dwell on the many tempting side issues such as a critique of the styles and the philosophies. I would have liked more about FLW's first 6 children, his parents and aunts, but this would have strayed from the focus and added more than one book could carry.
The book has a good layout with photographs placed with the material they support. The photos, particularly the portraits, add to the understanding of the text.
This is the kind of book that when it is finished, the reader needs time to digest it all.
November 1, 2012
There was Frank Lloyd Wright the genius architect, who created a genuinely new approach that shifted how people experienced modern buildings. There was also Frank Lloyd Wright the obsessive egomaniac, who was capable of amazing cruelty. This book is all about the latter. I give this book a low rating, but still recommend it to anyone interested in learning communities, and to anyone interested in extraordinary real-life melodrama. This book is an amazing read, but I completed it feeling like the authors primary motivation was to settle a score with Wright's memory. They certainly achieved that goal, but the book didn't help me understand how Wright accomplished what he did. It's a huge missed opportunity learn about how our dark side can influence our work and creative life.
Frank Lloyd Wright did everything right, and everything wrong when he created the Taliesin Fellowship. He had a inspiring, creative vision to create a new language for organic architecture, and years of deep practical experience to deliver it. He had the ambition to bring together a community of people that were enrolled in his vision and would devote their lives to making it real. He and his apprentices built the greatest physical work space they could imagine where they created some of the wondrous architectural masterpieces of the 20th century. He had devoted support of some of the most influential personalities of his era.
Alas, when Wright had established the right conditions for his Fellowship, he prevented anyone but himself from getting value from it. A telling moment came when one of his apprentices started getting his own valuable commissions: "There's only going to be one primadona around here, that that's me" he proclaimed. He routinely screwed-over his family, apprentices, patrons, customers, and business partners without hesitation. It's hard to identify a single person in Wright's life that he treated with genuine respect.
How could this happen? Despite exhaustive research, this book almost never inquires into that question. It's only in the last few paragraphs, in a quotation from Lath Schiffner, that they allow that Wright and his wife may have played a role in teaching humans "to pursue beauty as a spiritual path". That's the mystery that I wish this book had inquired into.
Frank Lloyd Wright did everything right, and everything wrong when he created the Taliesin Fellowship. He had a inspiring, creative vision to create a new language for organic architecture, and years of deep practical experience to deliver it. He had the ambition to bring together a community of people that were enrolled in his vision and would devote their lives to making it real. He and his apprentices built the greatest physical work space they could imagine where they created some of the wondrous architectural masterpieces of the 20th century. He had devoted support of some of the most influential personalities of his era.
Alas, when Wright had established the right conditions for his Fellowship, he prevented anyone but himself from getting value from it. A telling moment came when one of his apprentices started getting his own valuable commissions: "There's only going to be one primadona around here, that that's me" he proclaimed. He routinely screwed-over his family, apprentices, patrons, customers, and business partners without hesitation. It's hard to identify a single person in Wright's life that he treated with genuine respect.
How could this happen? Despite exhaustive research, this book almost never inquires into that question. It's only in the last few paragraphs, in a quotation from Lath Schiffner, that they allow that Wright and his wife may have played a role in teaching humans "to pursue beauty as a spiritual path". That's the mystery that I wish this book had inquired into.
September 21, 2009
I love Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture. It is a highpoint to visit these works of art/architecture in my travels. THE FELLOWSHIP is a great background on his life, his influences and his legacy as one of the greatest American architects. It does have its gossipy moments in tone...its definitely not a dry, staid biography.
November 3, 2017
Serious whittling of text needed.
April 12, 2024
I have been a lifelong admirer of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.
I grew up in Chicago, my father gave me a book about FLW at age 8. I went through the book and memorized and never forgot all his landmark buildings and houses and mourned those that were demolished. I would think about my city, the influence of FLW and Louis Sullivan and imagine that there was once a great moment in American history when architecture was magnificent and the dreams and accomplishments of the US were the envy of the world.
This book has brought my previous sky high assessment of Mr. Wright back down to Earth. For it is a weird and fascinating exploration into the private life of an architect who was born in 1867 but lived until 1959, an astonishing length of time that began two years after the Civil War and ended in the nuclear age.
The book depicts a man who, by present standards, was abusive to women, egotistical, given to sermonizing about himself and his country, seeing his own life and creations as godlike. He associated with mystics, believed in many supernatural half-truths, and ran his architecture firm one step ahead of creditors, always in debt, and dependent on his students to work as slaves to produce those works which revived his reputation in the 1930s, among them Johnson Wax in Racine and Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.
He was an admirer of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, two notorious anti-semites but high achievers who promoted the idea that the US should mind its own business after Hitler came to power and echoed the Fuhrer's hate in the US that Jews and big banking and big business were behind the march to war. Yet FLW had all his life many Jewish students, and Jewish clients among them the department store Kaufman (Fallingwater) and the Guggenheim (Museum).
Most fascinating is FLW's tragedies, how he left his first life and took up with a mistress who was later brutally murdered in a house fire set by a mad worker who hacked women and children and set fire to Taliesin. Wright rebuilt it and managed to marry another woman Olga (Olgivanna) Lazovich Hinzenburg, a disciple of G. I. Gurdjieff, a Russian-Armenian mystic.
The world of Olga and and Frank and their daughters, the many spiritual leaders who came to FLW, the intersection of creativity and madness and drama and spiritualism, all of it is described in this book and it is bizarre yet astonishing.
The establishment of Taliesin West in Arizona, the boys who worked shirtless in the desert, dug roads and built housing while subsisting on a diet of beans and rice and sleeping in tents in the Great Depression would make a movie in itself. FLW was a relentless and driven slave driver, using manipulative words and deeds to keep his minions in chains with the ever glowing dreams of architectural creations.
FLW always had a supremely high assessment of himself and demanded absolute loyalty from his students and clients. He even believed that his own inclinations about engineering were more factual than those of engineers. And he built the most astonishing buildings, Johnson Wax and Fallingwater, with 11th hour improvisations, pulling out steel and columns if they did not meet his aesthetic goals.
I found aspects of Mr. Wright that resembled Donald J. Trump: an insatiable ego, a cult like following, a hunger for the world to bow down and worship his words, financial chicanery, abuse of employees and family members, ad hominem attacks on people who disagreed with him, fraud and illegalities, sexual harassment. Yet also the cover of Time Magazine "the greatest living architect" all the praise and fame and kudos for FLW.
This book will open up both the brilliance and the ugliness of FLW and his world. It is a must read for anyone who wants to know the struggles and achievements of this remarkable man.
I grew up in Chicago, my father gave me a book about FLW at age 8. I went through the book and memorized and never forgot all his landmark buildings and houses and mourned those that were demolished. I would think about my city, the influence of FLW and Louis Sullivan and imagine that there was once a great moment in American history when architecture was magnificent and the dreams and accomplishments of the US were the envy of the world.
This book has brought my previous sky high assessment of Mr. Wright back down to Earth. For it is a weird and fascinating exploration into the private life of an architect who was born in 1867 but lived until 1959, an astonishing length of time that began two years after the Civil War and ended in the nuclear age.
The book depicts a man who, by present standards, was abusive to women, egotistical, given to sermonizing about himself and his country, seeing his own life and creations as godlike. He associated with mystics, believed in many supernatural half-truths, and ran his architecture firm one step ahead of creditors, always in debt, and dependent on his students to work as slaves to produce those works which revived his reputation in the 1930s, among them Johnson Wax in Racine and Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.
He was an admirer of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, two notorious anti-semites but high achievers who promoted the idea that the US should mind its own business after Hitler came to power and echoed the Fuhrer's hate in the US that Jews and big banking and big business were behind the march to war. Yet FLW had all his life many Jewish students, and Jewish clients among them the department store Kaufman (Fallingwater) and the Guggenheim (Museum).
Most fascinating is FLW's tragedies, how he left his first life and took up with a mistress who was later brutally murdered in a house fire set by a mad worker who hacked women and children and set fire to Taliesin. Wright rebuilt it and managed to marry another woman Olga (Olgivanna) Lazovich Hinzenburg, a disciple of G. I. Gurdjieff, a Russian-Armenian mystic.
The world of Olga and and Frank and their daughters, the many spiritual leaders who came to FLW, the intersection of creativity and madness and drama and spiritualism, all of it is described in this book and it is bizarre yet astonishing.
The establishment of Taliesin West in Arizona, the boys who worked shirtless in the desert, dug roads and built housing while subsisting on a diet of beans and rice and sleeping in tents in the Great Depression would make a movie in itself. FLW was a relentless and driven slave driver, using manipulative words and deeds to keep his minions in chains with the ever glowing dreams of architectural creations.
FLW always had a supremely high assessment of himself and demanded absolute loyalty from his students and clients. He even believed that his own inclinations about engineering were more factual than those of engineers. And he built the most astonishing buildings, Johnson Wax and Fallingwater, with 11th hour improvisations, pulling out steel and columns if they did not meet his aesthetic goals.
I found aspects of Mr. Wright that resembled Donald J. Trump: an insatiable ego, a cult like following, a hunger for the world to bow down and worship his words, financial chicanery, abuse of employees and family members, ad hominem attacks on people who disagreed with him, fraud and illegalities, sexual harassment. Yet also the cover of Time Magazine "the greatest living architect" all the praise and fame and kudos for FLW.
This book will open up both the brilliance and the ugliness of FLW and his world. It is a must read for anyone who wants to know the struggles and achievements of this remarkable man.
January 4, 2026
Wow. I hardly know where to start with this review. I guess first of all I should say a more appropriate title for this book would be The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright, Olgavana Lazovich, and the Taliesin Fellowship. Truly, this is as much a story of FLW as of his third wife. I found the early chapters that basically give a lot of background for the two of them to be somewhat tedious but as I read on I realized they were essential to the story. This is a long book but I’m not sure much editing would have been appropriate.
There is minimal information about their earlier lives, and the overall book does focus on the fellowship and how it operated over many years. Not a lot of personal details, but again that is not the intent of this book. FLW and Olgavana were married in 1928 when he was 61 and she was 30. She was a disciple of G. I. Gurdjieff, a mystic who taught students to achieve a higher state of consciousness. Gurdjieff’s teachings focused on movements that I can only understand as a rigid form of dance in a very structured way. He and his students lived together in a form of commune, and much of what Olgavana learned was carried over to the Taliesin fellowship.
Much of the book highlights certain students of the fellowship, including Gene Masselink and Wes Peters who eventually became his son in law. For the most part, the apprentices were required to work for their tutelage with farm work, building and maintaining the “school”, in the kitchen and acting as the Wright’s dogsbodies. This in addition to having paid a significant amount for tuition. It would seem that very little of their time was spent on learning their craft, at least in the early years as the facilities were being developed. It seemed like the endeavor lurched from one cash crisis to another as Wright was always putting off creditors, intentionally not paying taxes, and spending foolishly.
Some things in the book seemed to be left hanging. For example, background on two of Wrights most famous buildings - Fallingwater and the SC Johnson building - included stories about how the apprentices were left to complete parts of the work, and that there were significant structural problems with both. There was no follow up in the book to describe how these issues were resolved.
Wright’s relationships that are very lightly touched on read like a who’s who in American culture. Georgia O’Keefe, Henry Ford, Ayn Rand to name a few.
I felt that much of the material was well researched, but at the same time there were lots of anecdotes that seemed to come from disgruntled students from over the years. There is a lot to unpack in this book and it takes dedication to read it all. I found that I was so wound up in it I dreamt I was a student in the fellowship some nights.
One thing I was disappointed with - no photos in this book!
I will say that I ended this book finding Wright to be an even more unpleasant and unlikeable person than I found him to be to start with.
There is minimal information about their earlier lives, and the overall book does focus on the fellowship and how it operated over many years. Not a lot of personal details, but again that is not the intent of this book. FLW and Olgavana were married in 1928 when he was 61 and she was 30. She was a disciple of G. I. Gurdjieff, a mystic who taught students to achieve a higher state of consciousness. Gurdjieff’s teachings focused on movements that I can only understand as a rigid form of dance in a very structured way. He and his students lived together in a form of commune, and much of what Olgavana learned was carried over to the Taliesin fellowship.
Much of the book highlights certain students of the fellowship, including Gene Masselink and Wes Peters who eventually became his son in law. For the most part, the apprentices were required to work for their tutelage with farm work, building and maintaining the “school”, in the kitchen and acting as the Wright’s dogsbodies. This in addition to having paid a significant amount for tuition. It would seem that very little of their time was spent on learning their craft, at least in the early years as the facilities were being developed. It seemed like the endeavor lurched from one cash crisis to another as Wright was always putting off creditors, intentionally not paying taxes, and spending foolishly.
Some things in the book seemed to be left hanging. For example, background on two of Wrights most famous buildings - Fallingwater and the SC Johnson building - included stories about how the apprentices were left to complete parts of the work, and that there were significant structural problems with both. There was no follow up in the book to describe how these issues were resolved.
Wright’s relationships that are very lightly touched on read like a who’s who in American culture. Georgia O’Keefe, Henry Ford, Ayn Rand to name a few.
I felt that much of the material was well researched, but at the same time there were lots of anecdotes that seemed to come from disgruntled students from over the years. There is a lot to unpack in this book and it takes dedication to read it all. I found that I was so wound up in it I dreamt I was a student in the fellowship some nights.
One thing I was disappointed with - no photos in this book!
I will say that I ended this book finding Wright to be an even more unpleasant and unlikeable person than I found him to be to start with.
January 27, 2020
Why do people idolize this man??? I have a healthy respect for any of the old group of architects that pushed their boundaries and broke moulds of the world. Mr Lloyd was a pig. Unpleasant, rude, haughty, and took credit for work his slaves - I mean, interns- created and produced. But, the story isn’t about him. (Thank GOD!-if I rcv one more Frank Lloyd Wright coffee table book, I’ll scream! Not that o don’t really appreciate the love & I tent behind all those kind gifts; it’s just that FLW is not that famous & wholly respected in the reality of our world - architects. For example, if you are reading this and getting your hackles uo, go research the true architects of the style FLW gets credit for doing-The Brothers Green & Green. I did my Masters Thesis on these amazing men! They are still influential in the present world of architecture-organic architecture before the green movement we have today. They actually studied the Japanese way of construction, married the style they learned to its real world application and the result? Pasadena CA and the other cities containing their well-preserved work! Light fixtures, built-in wood work, etc. it’s the REAL architects like these men that deserve the hype. But I have DIGRESSED BADLY! This book was well written & did present info very candidly. I appreciated how the author focused on the school & it’s incredible story. The men & women who have been privileged enough to attend this college - some who attended today’s version are close friends & I respect & love their thinking & creativity. Something good came out if FLW’s ideas. I don’t feel complete disgust for the man. He’s an intriguing figure & did amazing work when he put himself to task. Despite being immoral & decadent. (I’m his mind) The real story was Taliesin and I enjoyed this “untold story”. The author worked diligently to tell this story. I recommend it wholeheartedly!
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January 1, 2024**Adding this to 2023 reading because I finished it before going to sleep on December 31/Jan 1!***
The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & the Taliesin Fellowship
By Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman
I knew this would be a weighty book when Ken Burns described it as ‘Mesmerizing’ 😅 And it was just that. A story about FLW’s life but focusing mainly on the Fellowship that he created to take in new disciples/apprentices at his Taliesin home in Wisconsin.
From arranging marriages within the fellowship to pairing off same sex couples when not enough women were present - FLW and his wife managed every aspect of life on their property.
There’s so much to this book that I’m having trouble finding the words to summarize it well. The book covers the creation of his most famous works like the Johnson Wax building, Fallingwater, and the Guggenheim along with his disastrous personal and family life.
I marked some a quotes that stuck out to me:
From one man: ‘I realized as never before how the insolence of his genius sometimes repelled me’ and called FLW’s buildings as ‘isolated monuments to his own greatness, built to satisfy nobody but himself.’
FLW was a narcissistic, egomaniac, wife beater who demanded adoration from everyone. He was also a genius unlike the architectural world had never known before or since. This book covers it all.
Let me know if you’d like to borrow it! See less
The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & the Taliesin Fellowship
By Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman
I knew this would be a weighty book when Ken Burns described it as ‘Mesmerizing’ 😅 And it was just that. A story about FLW’s life but focusing mainly on the Fellowship that he created to take in new disciples/apprentices at his Taliesin home in Wisconsin.
From arranging marriages within the fellowship to pairing off same sex couples when not enough women were present - FLW and his wife managed every aspect of life on their property.
There’s so much to this book that I’m having trouble finding the words to summarize it well. The book covers the creation of his most famous works like the Johnson Wax building, Fallingwater, and the Guggenheim along with his disastrous personal and family life.
I marked some a quotes that stuck out to me:
From one man: ‘I realized as never before how the insolence of his genius sometimes repelled me’ and called FLW’s buildings as ‘isolated monuments to his own greatness, built to satisfy nobody but himself.’
FLW was a narcissistic, egomaniac, wife beater who demanded adoration from everyone. He was also a genius unlike the architectural world had never known before or since. This book covers it all.
Let me know if you’d like to borrow it! See less
January 6, 2018
utterly fascinating look at the eccentric, selfish, brilliant frank lloyd wright, “a house builder and a home wrecker” + detailed & compelling story of the bizarre beliefs and practices of FLW, his family, and his fellowship of apprentices
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“The Taliesin community was a housing for Wright’s imagination, the seedbed where some of America’s most important architectural creations were produced...For all its magic, the fealty of its knights to their king of beauty, the cultivated grace of its routine, Taliesin is a haunted house. It has held its secrets, its mysteries and its madness, well. Few know of Taliesin’s unsung heroes, the apprentices who gladly sacrificed themselves to make Wright’s architecture happen—and fewer still know of its victims, men and women whose lives were irreparably damaged by life in the Fellowship, part of the cost of constructing greatness, of building a cult of genius.”
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instagram book reviews @brettlikesbooks
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“The Taliesin community was a housing for Wright’s imagination, the seedbed where some of America’s most important architectural creations were produced...For all its magic, the fealty of its knights to their king of beauty, the cultivated grace of its routine, Taliesin is a haunted house. It has held its secrets, its mysteries and its madness, well. Few know of Taliesin’s unsung heroes, the apprentices who gladly sacrificed themselves to make Wright’s architecture happen—and fewer still know of its victims, men and women whose lives were irreparably damaged by life in the Fellowship, part of the cost of constructing greatness, of building a cult of genius.”
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instagram book reviews @brettlikesbooks
September 5, 2018
Incredible research but not an easy read. For me, it took someone whose work I admired and who I looked up to as having had some of his greatest creative accomplishments late in life between the ages of 60-90 and made me despise him. He was an anti-Semitic, homophobic, communist leaning ego maniac who used the Taliesin Fellowship as slave labor and gave them little in return AND made them pay for the privilege of being in their circle. He was a lousy engineer and many of his famous projects had to be re-engineered by his free fellowship laborers AND he had no compunction about taking credit for their designs.
I had made the pilgrimage to Taliesin in Arizona a number of years ago and now I feel that was wasted time. He was horrid to his wife and children, a PT Barnum manic-depressive who could not handle anyone else taking the spotlight from him.
It is distressing to discover that someone you looked up to as an ideal not only has clay feet but was despicable as a person.
I had made the pilgrimage to Taliesin in Arizona a number of years ago and now I feel that was wasted time. He was horrid to his wife and children, a PT Barnum manic-depressive who could not handle anyone else taking the spotlight from him.
It is distressing to discover that someone you looked up to as an ideal not only has clay feet but was despicable as a person.
June 29, 2022
Life is definitely stranger than fiction.
I only recently learned about Taliesin when reading Rosemary Sullivan’s “Stalin’s Daughter”. It talked about Svetlana’s stay at the FLW “foundation” and her speedy romance and marriage to Wes Peter’s, the Wright’s son in law.
Wow. Taliesin was a whole pile of crazy! FLW may have been an architectural genius, but, he was the leader of a cult, with his wife Olgavanna alongside. As I read, I was reminded of Hubbard of Scientology infamy. The maltreatment of “apprentices” (who paid annually to be at Taliesin to learn architecture, but, we’re made to move stones, cook meals, etc), the dance lessons taught by Olgavanna and Iovanna (based on the teachings of another cult leader), the control over women to have sex with men at Taliesin. Etc etc
Eye opening cult craziness. FLW designed some interesting buildings. But, he was a horribly abusive individual .
I only recently learned about Taliesin when reading Rosemary Sullivan’s “Stalin’s Daughter”. It talked about Svetlana’s stay at the FLW “foundation” and her speedy romance and marriage to Wes Peter’s, the Wright’s son in law.
Wow. Taliesin was a whole pile of crazy! FLW may have been an architectural genius, but, he was the leader of a cult, with his wife Olgavanna alongside. As I read, I was reminded of Hubbard of Scientology infamy. The maltreatment of “apprentices” (who paid annually to be at Taliesin to learn architecture, but, we’re made to move stones, cook meals, etc), the dance lessons taught by Olgavanna and Iovanna (based on the teachings of another cult leader), the control over women to have sex with men at Taliesin. Etc etc
Eye opening cult craziness. FLW designed some interesting buildings. But, he was a horribly abusive individual .
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December 8, 2016I am horrified by personality cults and when I toured Taliesin West I had a feeling that I was entering ground zero of a personality cult. I have read the books about Wright and found him and him architecture overbearing and very dark. This book was intriguing right from the first chapter. The smart, educated people who gave everything to be in the beam of a spiritual path confounds me. Similar to the people who died in the Sedona Sweat Lodges thinking the leader was the path to a higher existence Stalin's daughter who knew something about personality cults and labor camps was horrified and very dismayed to be caught up in this place escaped but many did not. I compulsively read this book twice and have to give kudos to the author. Such extensive research and very readable for those who want to know more about the real flim flam artist FLW and his wife and his devoted followers.
December 25, 2023
Whatever I expected when I picked this book up, it delivered much more. The first third or so reads like a somewhat conventional biography of a famous creative. But once the focus shifts to the "fellowship" he built at Taliesin, it descends (ascends?) into a story of social/cultural/sexual experimentation, mysticism, and mental illness. Ultimately what Wright, with significant input from his final wife and widow, built was an odd fusion of an architectural practice pretending to be a school for tax purposes and a cult. I don't use the latter word lightly - the Taliesin Fellowship met all of the criteria that define a cult.
If you are a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, someone who has toured Taliesin and heard the "official story," or a devotee of odd cults and social experiments, I highly recommend this book.
If you are a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, someone who has toured Taliesin and heard the "official story," or a devotee of odd cults and social experiments, I highly recommend this book.
August 3, 2019
I blasted through this one, which I picked up on a whim in preparation for a visit to Taliesin West, the Fellowship’s home in Phoenix. The book is a deeply engrossing account of the Fellowship and its members, most of all Frank Lloyd Wright. As other reviewers note, Wright does not come out well in this treatment. The authors extensively document his ego, arrogance, and contrarian comfort with authoritarian politics, not to mention the anti-Semitism and racism typical of the age. At the same time, the book acknowledges Wright’s genius and his many iconic works, and the draw that genius had on many young men and some young women. If you’re looking for an authoritative work on Wright’s architecture, this is not it; if you’re looking to entry into the man and his world, there is no other.
March 4, 2023
FLW is a fascinating man and I love experiencing his work. He behaved like a god who walked the earth, gathering this cult-y following around him as he dreamed and built visionary places. I had never heard of Gurdjieff, but now I know, another early 20th century spiritual adventurer and communicator who exercised a powerful influence on people and also had a cult-y following which includes FLW’s best and final wife. She was key to FLW finding his own cult ways as he produced his most astounding work late in life, after a mid-life lull. This book gets inside the following and it’s a trip. I can’t do this review justice. Never meet your heroes? Maybe just be glad you didn’t grow up as their child.
June 25, 2025
Frank Lloyd Write created a Fellowship, a place for apprentices and then other creative types to gather learn together and over time expand into a more spiritual endeavor after his death.
This is a review of his life leading up to the creation of the Fellowship at Taliesin and then as it grew both in Wisconsin and Arizona the changing nature of what happened inside the Fellowship. It is a detailed look at the many aspects of how FLW and his wife both viewed and used it for their own purposes.
It describes a very communal, almost socialistic, society that challenged conventional thinking in many ways.
This is a review of his life leading up to the creation of the Fellowship at Taliesin and then as it grew both in Wisconsin and Arizona the changing nature of what happened inside the Fellowship. It is a detailed look at the many aspects of how FLW and his wife both viewed and used it for their own purposes.
It describes a very communal, almost socialistic, society that challenged conventional thinking in many ways.
June 3, 2022
In summary, a morally bereft man marries a morally bereft woman. They build a constantly failing empire on the backs of thier "apprentices," from whom they steal money, time and credit, put them in charge of construction with little or no oversight or instruction, and subject them to emotional and physical abuse. The Wrights were horrible people who negatively impacted the lives of almost everyone sucked into thier black hole of selfishness.
June 21, 2018
Exceptional in its development of such intangible history. A vivid picture of what Taliesin life was like. Remarkable in scope. Complete in its detail while still being a captivating story. A must read to understand the complex nature of architecture surrounding FL Wright, especially as you explore his work and visit Taliesin. Great job Mr. Friedland and Mr. Zellman. Thanks!
July 28, 2022
A bit of a slog, but filled with amazing stories, most with tragic endings. I will never look at my muse Frank Lloyd Wright the same way.
Happy I read it, but I will miss the child like naïveté I lost as result.
Happy I read it, but I will miss the child like naïveté I lost as result.
September 2, 2017
Fascinating subject matter. Exhaustively researched. Perhaps a bit biased, but hard to put down.
December 4, 2018
Ax murders, marrying the client's wife, and a cult-like architecture school. The life of FLLW is absolutely truly stranger than fiction.
December 6, 2018
Excellent. Fascinating account of his life and the cult of architects he developed around him.
November 5, 2022
Unbelievably researched and comprehensive book from the insiders' perspective of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Taliesin Fellowship, Olgivanna Wright and George Gurdjieff and their interrelationships.
January 1, 2024
EXCELLENT
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