Large Fallingwater photos:
Driveway approach

(Frank Lloyd Wright house over the waterfall)

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Fallingwater Tour Information: 724-329-8501

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Fallingwater, as it first appears from the driveway approach (from southeast).

The bridge on the right leads across the stream (Bear Run) to the "front" door, which is tucked away in what at first seems to be an insignificant corner. The terrace in the foreground on the main level (first floor) leads to the living room through sets of double doors on each side of the hatchway. There is another terrace on the other side of the living room, and the stream (Bear Run) runs under them, flowing from east to west (roughly right to left). The second-floor terrace on the left leads out from the master bedroom. The site chosen by Wright was lower in the canyon than was expected (from the standpoint of maximizing the view available), in keeping with the theme of a harmonious and natural relationship to the setting.

Original photo, taken by the webmaster. Click here or on photo for a smaller (600x400 pixel, 147k) version.

Why does a house designed by an architectural individualist for the special purposes of a special client appeal so much to the public in general? And what does it contribute to the art of architecture if its character is so circumscribed? One part of the answer is that Fallingwater is a happy flowering of Frank Lloyd Wright's genius, a great work of art. Yet underneath the effects of great art - however masterly and ingenious - there lies a consistency of the whole. To understand this quality one must consider those principles that guided the artist. In Wright's statements his principles are denoted by words embodying deep intuitions: organic, democratic, plasticity, continuity. During careful study of his texts and his architecture, I have come to believe that these terms present different aspects of one central insight. To Wright, architecture was a great inclusive agency through which humankind adapted the environment to human needs and, reciprocally, attuned human life to its cosmos; amid continual changes architecture could keep human life more natural and nature more humane. This idea pervades Fallingwater in accord with the aims of both architect and client, and gives it not only basic meaning but also powerful subliminal appeal. - Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Fallingwater: A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House, p. 31.

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SITE MAP This page created 2001, updated 1/16/12