Fallingwater, Pennsylvania, 1935 by Frank Lloyd Wright
One of a series of short accounts of innovative houses from 1500 to the present prepared for an unrealised book.
Of all Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, Fallingwater is one with the most universal appeal. Appearing on the cover of Time magazine in 1938, the house instantly captured the world’s imagination. It is not hard to understand why. Standing atop a large waterfall on Bear Run, a mountain stream south east of Pittsburgh, its geometric forms appear to almost defy gravity. Wide concrete trays extend horizontally towards the surrounding trees from a central vertical core of stacked masonry. As a piece of architecture, Fallingwater is avowedly modern, full of crisp intersecting geometries that also recall Wright’s deep interest in Japanese architecture. Yet the way it merges almost effortlessly with its surroundings — its outcrop-like forms flowing as naturally as the water coursing down the stream — every part bound together in a single unified whole — has few parallels in the history of architecture.
How did Wright get the opportunity to design such a house? By the late 1930s he was comfortably America’s most famous architect, with a number of already seminal projects under his belt, from his early Prairie Houses to his ‘Mayan-Modern’ houses in California. Moreover, he was known for his deep interest in nature — its forms, rhythms and material qualities — seeking to incorporate its essence into his designs — what he dubbed ‘organic architecture’. For Pittsburgh’s wealthy Kaufmann family, who were looking to build a new modern house in place of a small cabin in their secluded rural retreat, Wright was the obvious choice. It also helped that their son had become intrigued by Wright’s ideas and was even then studying at his architecture school, The Taliesin Fellowship, situated at his famous Taliesin estate in Wisconsin.
The site the Kaufmanns had in mind, however, was a difficult one. With the Bear Run close by, there was not enough room for a more typical Wright house design, especially with the large spaces for entertaining guests that the Kaufmanns desired. Wright’s solution was a series of cantilevered forms, with the main spaces of the house contained in reinforced concrete trays suspended spaces above the waterfall. The Kaufmanns had probably expected their house to have been conceived in such a way as to frame views of the waterfall. Instead, the house and the waterfall were brought almost completely together, reflecting Wright’s ‘organic’ principles. Rocks from around the site were integrated into the interior, for example, in the living room where a rock protrudes through the floor, bringing nature into the very heart of the home. Meanwhile, the constant sound of water rushing down Bear Run fills every space, inside and outside.
As well as a striking formal move, the house was a daring piece of engineering, one that was not completely successful, sparking some disagreement between architect, engineer, contractor and, ultimately, the client who was picking up the spiralling bill. Even during construction, the many cantilevers began to settle and deflect, with some requiring propping up from very early on. For a house built above a stream, damp and mildew were, unsurprisingly, also a major problem. Nevertheless, there can be little faulting a house of such towering ambition that has so singularly captured the imagination of all who come across it.
© Owen Hopkins 2018
