In 1937, 20-plus Frank Lloyd Wright apprentices began construction of Taliesin West in the Sonoran Desert foothills, now Scottsdale. Hundreds of later apprentices would add to the great architect’s winter home and school as part of their learning experience with him until his death in April 1959. The 555-acre campus became a National Historic Landmark in 1982, and this year celebrates 77 years since the groundbreaking. Among these apprentices: Cornelia Brierly, 99, who died a month after this story was written and was on site when Wright decided to build Fallingwater where it now is; her sister, Hulda; John Lautner and his wife, Mary Bud; Arnold Roy; John Rattenbury; Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer; Kamal Amin; Vern Swaback, whose firm is in Scottsdale; and Paolo Soleri, who died in 2013. We celebrate their achievements and that of Taliesin West.
