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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is Like a Well-Composed Photograph
You don’t expect the unexpected
Photographers and architects share something in common. They both do creative work.
A photographer, if they want to, can create images that are perfectly ordinary. They may capture their subjects with a correct exposure and perfect focus. But their photographs may still be lacking in interest. There might be no element of surprise.
We’ve all seen plenty of photographs like that. My portfolio is filled with them.
Likewise, an architect can design a building that way. Walls, floors, roof, windows — all of it can be completely utilitarian. Practical, but not necessarily attractive or interesting.
We’ve all seen houses and buildings like that. They’re boxy and boring.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s classic “Fallingwater” is certainly not like that.
Fallingwater
If you didn’t know, Fallingwater is a house designed by Wright for Edgar Kaufmann, a Pittsburgh department store owner, to be used as a weekend getaway. It was built directly over a waterfall in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania, using prominent cantilevers and incorporating natural elements of the site. The design is highly…
