No house should ever be on a hill, or on anything. It should be of the hill. Hill and house should live together, each the happier for the other.
- Frank Lloyd Wright Architects and Architecture Quotes
Fallingwater also known as Edgar Kaufman Sr. Residence was named as the best all-time work in American Architecture in 1991 and ranked 29th on the list of America's Favourite Architecture in 2007 by American Institute of Architecture. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the greatest architect in Modern Architecture. Fallingwater stands as one of Wright's greatest masterpieces both for its dynamism and for its integration with the striking natural surroundings. This organically designed private residence was intended to be a nature retreat for its owners. The house is well-known for its connection to the site: it is built on top of an active waterfall which flows beneath the house.
The sitting area, which includes a long built-in upholstered bench accompanied by cushioned modular seating. A similar, longer bench extends practically the full width of the living room, under the "front" windows at a right angle to the window in this picture. Cushions on the benches and in the modular seating are stone white or autumn colors.
The fireplace hearth in the living room is composed of boulders found on the site and upon which the house was built — one set of boulders which was left in place protrudes slightly through the living room floor. The stone floors are waxed, while the hearth is left plain, giving the impression of dry rocks protruding from a stream.
There is no separate dining room at Fallingwater. Although a "great room" is common today, it was unusual in 1935. In fact, Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered "open plan" house design, favoring large, open and connected spaces rather than small, enclosed rooms. Fallingwater's great room (usually called the living room ) has this dining area, a fireplace nearby, seating areas one might expect to find in a living room, a built-in desk, lots of space, and lots of windows (as well as glass doors opening onto balconies) on the south end. Windows, natural light, the built-in desk, and the proximity of the fireplace to the dining table can be seen.
The kitchen is small, with a stove on the left wall, a table and chairs, and cabinets and sink on the right wall. Built-in shelves follow the contour of the space, conveying a feeling of being sturdy and protected, like the inner portions of the house itself. The windows in the photo reach from floor to ceiling, and make up the lower third of a three-story wall of glass in the west tower. So the kitchen is at the foundation of the most dramatic vertical statement in the architectural design of the house.
This photo was taken from the southwest corner of the largest terrace, the one right above the living room that opens out from the master bedroom. Bold eaves visible in this photo, as well as window treatments and long terraces, create dramatic horizontal lines throughout the house. The soaring vertical tower rises more than three stories, windows stretching from floor to ceiling, creating a continuous column of glass, broken only by narrow steel support beams, painted an earthy brick-red. The tower serves as a visual and literal anchor for the cantilevered floors and the terraces that extend them further. While the vertical and horizontal lines demarcate the geometry of the house and its boundaries, there is at the same time an interpenetration of vertical and horizontal, and of inside and outside. The windows in the tower, even when closed, suggest relatively little barrier between inside and outside, but they also can be opened at the vertical "corner" where normally a support beam would be, creating an unexpected but pleasing empty space that joins inside and outside, liberated from a boxed-in structure one might expect from architecture involving so many vertical and horizontal faces. If you look closely, you can see this: two pairs of windows are open near the top of the second story, and the vertical corner post disappears! Window corner treatments throughout the house (and guest house), which suggest little barrier between inside and outside, are yet another reminder that Frank Lloyd Wright found creative ways to go escape the box and reconnect with nature.
The "hatchway" consists of small vertical glass doors that open out as well as horizontal sliding glass panels that can be pushed back. This opening leads to the staircase to the stream below. So not only is the main level of the house cantilevered over the stream and partly over the waterfall, the main room on the main level - the living room (or great room) - is physically connected to the stream (Bear Run) via the staircase. Notice that the ceiling here (but in no other part of the house) is glass, set on a continuation of the trellis over the southeast terrace, so that a vertical openness above and below is created, which Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. describes in his beautiful book as a "column of air" to be contrasted with the "column of stone" that was the great, solid chimney wall. Notice also the stone floor which, because of its being polished, has a wet look, suggesting closeness to the water below.
The lowest level visible in this photo is the main level, where the end of the living room is flanked by terraces on the left and on the right. The stream (Bear Run) runs under them, flowing from east to west (right to left). 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. The second-floor terrace in the foreground (over the living room) leads out from the master bedroom, and the guest room is to its right. Rising higher than any other part of the main house is the stone edifice of the west tower, and extending to the right from it in the photo is the third-floor gallery. What appears in this photo to be a fourth floor is actually the guest house and garage, which sits up on the hill behind the main house, connected by a covered walkway.
More on Fallingwater and other Frank Lloyd Wright Designs:
Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks
Sources: http://www.wright-house.com/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/
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