Today was my first visit to one of the most iconic places of
architecture: Fallingwater, or Kaufmann Residence, designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright in 1935. The house is located in the rural Laurel Highlands of
southwestern Pennsylvania. The house was built partly over a waterfall on Bear
Run and is probably the most famous examples of organic architecture as
integration of nature within man-made constructions. Bridges, terraces, roofs
made of steel and concrete follow curvilinear shapes to engage in an harmonious
dialogue with the natural features.
The total house cost at the time of construction was
$155,000, about thirty times the cost of a house of a similar square footage
(2885 sq. ft. interior) in Pennsylvania
at the time.
Fallingwater was used by the Kaufmann family (Edgar Kaufmann
Sr. (1885-1955), Liliane S. Kaufmann (1889-1952), and their son, Edgar Kaufmann
jr. (1910-1989) as a weekend home until
1963, when it was entrusted by Edgar Kaufmann, jr., to the Western Pennsylvania
Conservancy.
Architecture follows nature in details: concrete slab opening to allow a tree to penetrate the man-made construction
Countryside surrounding the Fallingwater site
