Color Rising From The Desert Floor
At Taliesin West, the rose-colored spectrum of the desert palette shows up dramatically in the home of Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer. Based on an earlier Wright design, Pfeiffer's residence features cylindrical columns of pink-colored concrete, towering below the sloping hills of the McDowell Mountains.
In an open hut structure designed and constructed more recently by an architectural student on the desert floor at Taliesin West, the pink colors of its concrete floor, steps, roof and walls blend in perfectly with the Sonoran landscape of sand, rocks and vegetation. The colors of this experiemental shelter are most apparent at SAMARA today.
The striking similarities can be traced to Mr. Wright's use of the desert palette in his Usonian architectural style. He seems to have made a point to project into SAMARA a special effect that he found so appealing in the desert environment.
At SAMARA, people experience a warm and comfortable feeling arising in part from the rose-colored desert palette that Wright uncovered and expanded while living, learning and experimenting for more than two decades at Taliesin West.