Wright's Desert Masterpiece
SAMARA at night offers a spectacular display of Frank Lloyd Wright's desert palette. In the living room, a spectrum of rich desert-rose colors combine to create a new sense of space saturated with magnificant hues.
Spaced every four feet, the indirect light arising from the horizontal shelves spreads all the way to the white plaster ceiling and all the way to the fabric on the built-in seats. The resulting dark shadows formed between the horizontal shelves and in the inglenook at the far end of the room is reminiscent of the blackness that falls on the desert at night.
There is a glow of light reflected through every aspect of the room and off every object. Light reaches the ceiling from the horizontal shelves to mimic the square-shaped columns of Philippine mahogany that hide pink light bulbs specified by Wright.
The pinkish and rose-colored hues of reflected light transform SAMARA into the way the Sonoran Desert appears at sunset. SAMARA's lighting accents everything in the room and creates new designs as well.
When viewed at night, the pole light near the fireplace shows off the characteristic beige, pink and ivory colors of Wright's desert palette. The pink bulbs in the pole light create the appearance of natural light reflecting off the reddish-pink brick wall as well as from the Philippine mahogany wood of the lamp itself.
An infrared lamp in the fireplace illuminates the space containing the grate and fire wood. Infrared rays reflect off the buff colored fire brick to create a soft rose colored surface with shadows of the grate super imposed.
At SAMARA, Frank Lloyd Wright uses the true colors of the southwest in a way that lifts the desert palette to a higher level of artistic expression. In this late, pristine Usonian home, Wright transforms the unique hues of the Sonoran Desert that anchor us to a firm, natural foundation.
There is no escaping the strong intensity of red colors at SAMARA. However, Wright often tempers the color of his dark Taliesin red floors by using direct sunlight to create shades lighter and therefore pink in color.
This is the opposite of what happens naturally in Wright's stark desert environment. Low intensity light and shadows in the evening transform the brighter colors of the desert floor and hills into darker shades eventually reaching dark purple and black.
Through the brilliance of Frank Lloyd Wright and the potential he saw in the Sonoran Desert, we are able to better interpret SAMARA colors and their use as a masterpiece of his great work.