Summer Immersion 2023
The School of Architecture, founded by Frank Lloyd Wright as the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932, is pleased to offer our Summer Immersion 2023 program for a second year.
This immersion program is open to adults of all ages who are interested in architecture and urbanism. A background in the field is not required. Application deadline March 15, 2023.
Program Description
Our Summer Immersion program will explore notions of collective space in architecture and urban design through both historic and contemporary projects across rural and urban landscapes. Participants will engage in tours and private events at a number of significant Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Chicago and Wisconsin, as well as many other important cultural and architectural sites in the region.
Students will be based on IIT’s campus in downtown Chicago, centered on the studio space in Mies Van der Rohe’s iconic Crown Hall. IIT’s campus boasts a number of important buildings by Mies, as well as the 2003 competition-winning Campus Center by Rem Koolhaas/OMA.
At the heart of the program will be a series of week-long design exercises reflecting on buildings, public spaces, communities, practices, and institutions that participants will engage with during weekly tours. Students will imagine how design can inform, augment, and engage specific sites and neighborhoods. Each exercise will be reviewed through a pin-up at the end of the week. 4-week participants will have the opportunity to present their entire body of work to a panel of TSOA faculty and students, architects, and community members.
Wisconsin Weekend July 22-23, 2023
The program includes a weekend visit to significant Wright sites in Wisconsin and the “driftless” region of the state (a three-hour drive from Chicago). This dramatic landscape fundamentally informed Wright’s work, including his theories on organic architecture and his early Chicago-based projects through which he defined his quest to establish a uniquely American architecture.
While in Wisconsin, students will have access to the historic Wyoming Valley School as home base, which was built by Wright in 1956. Students will engage local community and culture through special events and a formal dinner.
During the Wisconsin trip, students will gain a special focus on Wright’s work, observing relationships between individual and collective spaces, architecture and landscape, and urban and suburban form. Students will explore these relationships through the lenses of scale and organization, program, materials, and environment, all of which inform the role of architecture within culture and society. The trip will be complemented by readings around Wright’s works and thought.
Program Options and Cost
Four Week Program | Two Week Program | One Week Program | |
|---|---|---|---|
Program Dates | July 10 - August 4, 2023 | July 10 - July 24, 2023 | July 17 - July 24, 2023 |
Program Fee with Housing | $4,500 | $2,500 | $1,500 |
Program Fee without Housing | $3,000 | $1,750 | $1,000 |
Program Fees will be credited toward the M.Arch program should a participant decide to enroll. The Program Fee includes meals, studio space, and basic materials for design exercises.
**Not included: Airfare, local transportation, final project materials**
Participants in each program length will engage in design exercises around weekly chosen themes.
Student Housing will be provided through the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Vaccination Requirements
All participants must provide proof of full vaccination at least two weeks prior to the start date of the program.
Participants Should Bring
Sketchbook, preferred drawing tools, camera or camera phone, laptop or iPad, Rhino/Adobe software (optional for non-background participants), comfortable walking shoes.
For more information on the Summer Immersion Program, please contact admissions@tsoa.edu