The design of the San Marcos in the Desert resort began in 1926, with Dr Alexander Chandler’s invitation to visit the town he was building in the Arizona desert near the city of La Mesa. In this urban nucleus that would bear his name, Chandler wanted to build a “vacation site in the desert, located in a narrow mountain pass, fed by irrigation, for millionaires tired of the east who in the winter will appreciate the dry desert more than the green of moist fields.” To carry forth the commission, Wright set up a temporary camp near the site of the resort where he would draw up the plans and supervise the future construction. The camp was christened “Ocatillo” in honour of a desert shrub. As Wright himself said, “the building (would grow) out of the desert, using materials from the desert itself, naturally, just like the giant cactus”. Such was the synthesis that Wright wanted to establish between his architecture and nature, which anticipates his future work from the 1930s.

Construction on the camp finished in early 1928, but by the time the technical and contractual documentation on the resort were completed, the 1929 Great Depression struck. Dr Chandler was financially ruined and was unable to pay Wright’s fees, so the architect decided to leave Arizona and move to Chicago, abandoning the camp, though not the idea of returning.

The resort was located at the start of a rocky mountain slope facing south, with a deep canyon dividing it into two parts where Wright placed the main entrance to conceal it from view. Above the entrance is the core of communal areas of the resort, including the hall, the lobby, the smoking room, the dining room, the dance hall and the kitchens. This bulk is topped by a tower 33 metres tall made with a system of textile blocks like the rest of the building and with glass and copper finishes to highlight the entrance.

Three wings radiated out from this central nucleus which hugged the slope of the mountain, adapting to the rugged terrain as Wright had done in Ocatillo and the textile houses in the 1920s. The first wing – the shortest – housed a study area and services and was recessed compared to the others. The room wing was laid out along three staggered platforms following the slope of the land to ensure that plenty of sunlight entered the rooms, both single and double, with small private swimming pools.

In order to adapt the building to the topography, Wright used a pattern generated by diagonal lines which by following the contour lines in the land gave rise to compositions based on the triangle, the hexagon and the rhombus. This clear physical presence generating the diagonals harks back to the figures that appear both horizontally and vertically and in some ornamental details. It can also be seen in Barnsdall House (1917-21), the design for the Little Dipper Kindergarten (1921-3) and several projects from the 1920s. In the case of the San Marcos in the Desert resort, they are placed at the service of the organic idea of adaptation to the topography, springing from the organic desire to transmit the nature of the desert, expressing the zigzagging skin of the giant cactus. We can see the echo of these experiences in Taliesin West and in some of Wright’s houses from the 1930s.

Oriol Hostench