Frank Lloyd Wright House To Be Moved, Preserved

By Steve Goldstein
Published: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - 2:50pm
Updated: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - 2:54pm
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(Photo courtesy of Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation)
Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Ariz. in 1937.

Discussing the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright and his creations has grown more energetic in recent years in the Valley. The possibility of a redesign of a house Wright built for his son and daughter-in-law led to passionate efforts to preserve the house and, eventually, to a sale to an owner who would not make dramatic changes.

The latest edition of The New Yorker includes a story on a New Jersey couple who bought a Wright-designed home and planned to stay in it forever until Hurricanes Floyd and Irene led to concerns that it would be damaged severely by weather.

So, the couple sold the house to Walmart heiress Alice Walton, and it is being moved bit by bit in three tractor-trailers to Arkansas, where it will be preserved in a museum. But is that really preservation?
We talked about that with writer and architecture critic Walt Lockley.