Johnson Desert Compound | Arizona Biltmore Hotel | San Marcos-in-the Desert | Ocatilla | Taliesin West OCATILLA Location: Phoenix South Mountains Built: 1929 Client: Frank Lloyd Wright Type: Temporary Wright Camp Ocatilla site plan showing the spread-out angular plan that Wright used to describe the immortality of desert beings. Drawing taken from Levine, p. 202. Ocatilla was different than Wright's other desert works because it was designed to be temporary. It would house all those working of the San Marcos project, and offer a secluded, inspirational place of work for Wright and his six draftsman. Wright considered Ocatilla to be the architect's "compound", its fifteen cabins tied together by box-board walls that would meet each other at different staggered levels. The roof was made of white canvas on frames which could be opened instead of doors or windows. Wright became fond of this roof because it diffused light throughout the compound in a way that Taliesin did not (An Autobiography, p. 331). The canvas offered an unnatural contrast to the desert landscape unlike any other roof Wright had designed. The many sloping triangular roofs of Ocatilla mimicked the distant desert hills, as the wooded sides fit well with the surrounding desert vegetation. This photograph shows the temporary canvas roofs, the thin wooden walls and the triangular roofs meant to mimic the surrounding mountains. The harsh climate of the desert can be seen in the sparsely vegetated sand that surrounds the desert camp. Photo taken from Levine, p. 203. The temporary design of Ocatilla was meant to reflect those same characteristics of desert beings. Life in the desert is difficult, and this can be seen in the vegetation and animal life which have developed such strong resilience to the hot, arid climate. Ocatilla's white canvas roofs, and dried wood sides reached for the sun, as did the mountains and the sahuro surrounding the camp. Wright wanted Ocatilla exist as long as needed, but he purposefully made it temporary to enforce the fact that nothing in the desert can live forever. Ocatilla embraced the life giving sun, but also appreciated its strength in such a rugged area such as Arizona.
site created 4/15/98 by W. Derek Weems wdwee@yahoo.com Last Updated on August 22, 2004 01:25:09 PM