Frank Lloyd Wright falling water house
This type of house belongs to the organic architecture promoted by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was designed in Pennsylvania. It was built for the businessman Edgar Kaufmann between 1935 and 1939 following Frank Lloyd Wright’s plans. It is situated on the road 381 between the villages Mill Run and Ohio Pyle in Pennsylvania in the USA on the banks of the river Bear Run. Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the first architects who created terraces to open the house towards nature as environment is a strong point of his architecture.
Description
The house is built on a plateau of concrete, built on cliffs, above a waterfall. Its verandas and terraces advance on the void and the wild nature. The rock can be seen in the interior of the house and the walls which support it are made of stone. It is a real Robinson cabin, but a lucky one, and a remarkable architectural gesture. This house has as purpose to prove all the circulation which it can have: light thanks to the glass, water, thanks to the torrent which flows under the house. You can also notice that the height of the house highlights the vegetation.
Constitution
These constructions are geometric shapes assembles - triangle, rectangle, lozenge, circle – in order to create a fluid space.The house is conceived from a cross like plan, on three floors. The ground floor contains common parts, especially the living room which contains the fire place, central object of the house. This fire place is built next to the cliff next to which the Kaufmans used to go for a picnic. This cliff was integrated on the floor of the living room. The other two floors contain the rooms and the bathrooms. The history of Falling water began when Edgar Jr., a young man of 24 wanted to join the company Taliesin, a group of young architects conducted by Frank Lloyd Wright’s residence. He did not find any inconvenient. One day Edgar Jr.’s parents came to visit their son at Wright’s residence. They were amazed at the beauty of Wright’s house. After some time the Kaufmanns and the Wrights became friends. The Kaufmann wanted to find an architect in order to have a chalet built on their land situated next to Bear Run. That land was crossed by a river with a waterfall. When Frank Lloyd Wright studied the land for the first time, he went to the water wall. He was fascinated by the torrent and he saw in this masterpiece of nature a great opportunity for architecture. In the fall of 1935, after he received a map with the level difference over the waterfall and the position of the trees, Wright began the first sketches related to the concept of Falling water. A month later, the plans of the house were finished. There was only one section left to be designed: the garage, the guest house and the bedroom for janitors. This section was finished in 1939. Mister Kaufman was amazed to see that the extraordinary conception force of Wright took shape.
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