Exterior Renovations

The fire gave Wright the opportunity once again to improve Taliesin. The approach to house was changed so that the building was reached from below and the road wound around the hill and arrived at the rear,entering the coutyard at the top of the hill from the south. This was different to the original driveway that ran down the south east side.
The most significant feature of Taliesin III's exterior is the tower positioned at the far end of the house near the service area. The tower is the only two storey structure of the building and would seem to be a form that runs against Wright's Taliesin philosophy of the horizontal plain that characterises the house. However the critic Neil Levine offers an interesting view on the only part of Taliesin to ever rise above the height of the hill;

'[The] tower indicates the deepest penetration of the house into the hill and can thus be seen as an eccentric vertical axis staking the building to the site as the house unwinds in a spiraling counterclockwise direction.'(1)

(1) Neil Levine, The Story Of Taliesin:Wright's First Natural House. p8.
Note: Levine credits David Van Zanten with noticing this feature on their visit to Taliesin together.