For Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University, this is hallowed ground. It is the site of Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s low-slung winter home in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains. The residence’s slanted redwood beams and walls of native stone appear to be natural extensions of the desert landscape. Mr. Crow, a stocky figure in a blue blazer and an open-necked shirt, strolls toward the prow of the property, where a gravel walkway juts to a tip on the southern side of the residence. From this vantage point, Wright intended his home to resemble a ship on the desert, draped with a canvas roof reminiscent of a sail. The deliberateness of it all, Mr. Crow says, carries the signature of a master designer bending the natural world to his aims.

April 24, 2015 ・ From Chronicle of Higher Education