Fallingwater - an architectural masterpiece designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Many years ago, while in college, an art major friend and I made a trip from Akron, Oh to just outside Pittsburgh, PA to view the architectural masterpiece, Fallingwater. My grandfather, also an architect and stone mason, had talked about this house and architect, Frank Lloyd Wright all the years I was growing up, but it was not until college that I realized the importance of this house to the architectural world. The beauty and simplicity of the lines of this house captured my imagination. And the natural beautiful surroundings left me feeling tranquil and serene.

Fallingwater is a weekend home that was designed by American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, probably, America's most original, creative, innovative and gifted architect. Throughout his life, Wright was an architect, interior designer, writer and educator all rolled up in one. He believed in an architectural philosophy he called organic architecture, and designed structures in harmony with humanity and its environment.

Fallingwater or the Kaufmann residence was designed by Wright in 1935. It is nestled in rural southwestern Pennsylvania approximately fifty miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The home was built partly over a waterfall in Bear Run in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains. It is a beautiful, elegant home encompassing all of Frank Lloyd Wright's beliefs and philosophies of communing nature and man to live in harmony together. Frank Lloyd Wright was "green" eons before the term became popular in our lexicon. This house is why Frank Lloyd Wright has been labeled an architectural genius. And it is this house that defined his whole career and his passion for integrating the home, and therefore man, within nature.

The home was originally designed for Edgar Kaufmann, Sr, businesssman and president of Kaufmann's Department Stores in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was built to be the weekend home and retreat for the Kaufmanns and was so from l937-l963. Kaufmann's son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. was an architect working for Frank Lloyd Wright at the time and so the Kaufmanns commissioned Wright to design their weekend home for them.

Fallingwater became Wright's greatest masterpiece for its integration of the house into the natural surroundings of the wooded, forested area and the stream and waterfall under the house. This structure was his ultimate vision of harmony between man and nature. Wright believed the treatment of space was the most important aspect of architecure that he had learned from the Japanese and Wright's passion for Japanese architecture is strongly reflected in Fallingwater's design. His organic design of this house was Wright's architectural trademark and this house was intended to be a nature retreat for the Kaufmanns.

What is so interesting and the focal point of the house is that it is built on top of an active waterfall which flows beneath the house and is integrated with nature all around the house. The house was built to have a definite connection to the outside site. Ledge rock protrudes up to a foot through the living room, and was left in place to link the outside of the house with the inside. The fireplace hearth integrates boulders found on the site and on which the house is built. Waxed stone floors are foils to the rough texture of the stone walls of the rooms.

Decks run around the entire outside of the house and the low ceilings in the rooms inside the house beckon the people inside to move outdoors to enjoy the beauty of the natural surroundings. It is also said that Frank Lloyd Wright was a small man and designed his homes with his short height in mind. Wright also built servant's quarters and a guest house attached to the outside of the building. The horizonal and vertical lines of the house flow naturally along with nature and give off a peacefulness and serenity not found in the city, This is the ultimate nature retreat.

Wright also designed the interior rooms of the house. The living room is large and many of the window seats and chairs are naturally designed to keep with the natural harmony of nature outside and inside. The bedrooms are quite small to encourage the residents to gather in the house, which has windows all around, and to enjoy the natural elements and the outside beauty. This was Wright's ultimate architectural vision.

Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. donated the property to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and in l964 the house became a museum. It averages about 150,000 visitors each year.

Don't miss this architectural beauty if you are in the Pittsburgh area. It is a treat. Plan to spend one whole day at the house, touring the inside, which is innovative even by today's standards. Also, tour the outside natural surroundings and view and photograph the natural waterfall. It is amazing how the house is built right into the rock in the surroundings and the house seems to "bloom open as a flower" in its natural surroundings.

Fallingwater is not to be missed.

Other places to view Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, homes and buildings is in Chicago, Illinois, Oak Park, Illinois, Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Arizona. These are the places Wright resided during his life and he left his architectural stamp wherever he lived. The Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue in NY city is also a Frank Lloyd Wright designed building not to be missed.