Not Just Your Ordinary Bank

The M&I Bank building in Spring Green, Wisconsin, is a definite “must see” if you are in the area touring Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home. The bank was designed by a Wright associate, William Wesley Peters. Peters was Wright’s first apprentice, joining him in 1932. He assisted Wright in the designs of Fallingwater and did the structural rendition of the Guggenheim Museum.

The bank, located in downtown Spring Green about an hour’s drive west of Madison, is an operating bank, and is open during business hours. A nearby building, at one time the drive through window for the bank, is now occupied by Spring Green’s Chamber of Commerce.

Peters was first married to Wright’s adopted daughter, Svetlana, who tragically died in an auto accident with one of Peters’ sons. Later, he was briefly married to Svetlana Alliluyeva, the only daughter of Joseph Stalin, in a marriage arranged by Peters’ mother-in-law, Olgivianna Wright. (Frank Lloyd Wright’s last wife, she survived him and ran the Foundation for many years.)

Peters was a widely respected architect and engineer, and a loyal friend of Wright and advocate of his ideas. He completed several projects that Frank Lloyd Wright left in various degrees of completion after Wright’s death. He was Chairman of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation from 1985 until his death in 1991.

Photos by Bo Mackison, a Madison area writer and photographer who travels Wisconsin in search of Frank Lloyd Wright-related architectural gems. To see more Wisconsin photos, visit her galleries at Seeded Earth Photography.

Wired! Black Crowned Crane

The International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI maintains a collection of captive cranes, including several black crowned cranes, which helps their work in crane preservation: captive breeding and reintroduction into the wild. Their work also demonstrates endangered species management for the public, and facilitates breeding and education information elsewhere in the United States and abroad. It is the only place in the world where you can see all 15 crane species.

Black Crowned Crane

When I visited the Crane Foundation earlier this month, this crane was especially interested in my camera, and made several attempts to get a little too close. Maybe I didn’t ask for the appropriate model release!

The Black Crowned Crane is indigenous to the Sahel region of Africa. The ICF in coordination with Wetlands International has coordinated a conservation plan for these birds. There are approximately 40,000 Black Crowned Cranes in existence, and their numbers are declining.

The most serious threats to this crane species are illegal capture for the pet industry. An ancient tradition in West Africa to keep domesticated cranes in the household compounds persists to this day. But an additional threat is an intensified international trade in the birds in the last 30 years. Also degradation of the species’ habitat – the wetlands and grasslands of West Africa due to drought, destruction of tree cover and overgrazing – is a factor in their declining numbers.

A regional African program has been set up to provide alternative income opportunities for crane traders and for distribution of community-based information and conservation methods in Nigeria and the Sudan.

The Crane Foundation is currently in a re-building program, and many of the exhibits are closed. The new exhibits will open next spring.

Taliesin Gardens and Asian Sculptures

Asian Sculpture in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Garden

Wright’s Crane Sculpture from Japan in Taliesin’s Garden

Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Spring Green, Wiscosnin, has several gardens also designed by Wright. (If you know much about FLW, perhaps you know that Wright designed everything connected with his homes. He was not only the architect, he also designed the furniture, rugs, and everyday house implements from dishes to lamps. And some of his clients even allowed him to design their clothing, including magnificent dresses, so that they would FIT into his vision of his perfect environment. (Susan Dana from Springfield IL was his favorite client because she agreed to any of his ideas AND funded them promptly!) Hmm. Maybe Frank was a bit of a control freak in addition to all his creativity and genius.

Anyway, Wright brought thousands of art objects and artifacts from Asia to the US, most notably from Japan, and used them throughout many of his homes, in his designs and in his gardens. These two cranes are in the garden near his bedroom in Taliesin. He could open his bedroom door which was set into a wall of framed windows, take a dip in his 8 foot deep plunge pool, and then wander a bit through his flowers and sculptures.

It really would have been an insomniac’s solution – a dip in a cool pool and then a midnight stroll in the gardens. I’d much prefer that option to the one I take nearly every night when I find myself awake, lying awake and watching the ceiling.

Do you think FLW would mind a new occupant?