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Course: AP®︎/College Art History > Unit 6

Lesson 2: Modern and contemporary art

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater

By Charle Wiebe
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), 1935–38, Bear Run, Pennsylvania (Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress; photo: Carol M. Highsmith)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), 1935–38, Bear Run, Pennsylvania (Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress; photo: Carol M. Highsmith)
Perched above a mountain cataract on a rocky hillside deep in the rugged forest of Southwestern Pennsylvania, some 90 minutes from Pittsburgh, is the most famous house in the United States. The commission for Fallingwater was a personal milestone for the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, since it clearly marked a turning point in his career. After this late-career triumph, the sixty-seven year old would go on to create a series of highly original designs that would validate his claim as “The world’s greatest architect.” [1]

“The greatest architect of the nineteenth-century” —Philip Johnson

The mid-1930s were among the darkest years for architecture and architects in American history; the country’s financial system had collapsed with the failure of hundreds of banks. Almost no private homes were built. Many of the architectural projects started during the boom of the late 1920s were halted for lack of funds. Now in his sixties, Wright and his new wife Olgivanna were struggling to keep Taliesin, his Wisconsin home and studio, out of foreclosure. Worse still, his peers were beginning to regard Wright as an irrelevant anachronism whose time had passed.
Installation view, "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition," Feb 9–Mar 23, 1932 (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Installation view, "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition," Feb 9–Mar 23, 1932 (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
In 1932 Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson opened the "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition" at the newly founded Museum of Modern Art in New York and simultaneously published the book International Style. This was, perhaps, the most influential architectural exhibit ever mounted in the United States and the book became a manifesto for
and would profoundly affect almost every major architectural project worldwide for the next 30 years. It focused on the work of four great "European
" Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and J.J.P. Oud. Wright was largely snubbed.
Hitchcock had praise for his early work, for its “many innovations," but he condemned Wright for a “[l]ack of continuity in his development and his unwillingness to absorb the innovations of his contemporaries and his juniors in Europe.” Hitchcock insulted Wright further by characterizing him as “a rebel by temperament… [who] refused even the discipline of his own theories.” The catalogue calls Wright a “half-modern” throwback, one of the “last representatives of Romanticism.” [2] Wright responded by denigrating European Modernism as an “evil crusade,” a manifestation of “totalitarianism.” [3]

A fellowship and a commission

The Wrights devised an architectural apprenticeship program that came to be known as the “fellowship.” Among the first candidates was Edgar Kaufmann Jr., who became enamored with Wright after reading his biography. Kaufmann was the son of Pittsburgh department store tycoon Edgar Kaufmann Sr., whose thirteen-story downtown Pittsburgh emporium was reported to be the largest in the world. Kaufmann Senior was no stranger to architectural pursuits—he was involved in numerous public projects and built several stores and homes. Kaufmann let Wright know that he had several civic architectural projects in mind for him. He and his wife Liliane were invited to Taliesin and were duly impressed.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, steps to stream (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Bear Run, Pennsylvania (photo: Jon Fisher, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, steps to stream (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Bear Run, Pennsylvania (photo: Jon Fisher, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
There are varying accounts regarding the circumstances that brought Kaufmann to offer Wright a chance to design a “weekend home” in the country; but we know that Wright made his first trip to the site on Bear Run, Pennsylvania, in December, 1934. Wright’s apprentice Donald Hoppen has spoken of Wright’s “uncanny sense of...genius loci” (Latin for "spirit of the place") and from the very beginning, the architect rejected a site that presented a conventional view of the waterfall; instead, he audaciously offered to make the house part of it, stating that the “visit to the waterfall in the woods stays with me and a domicile takes shape in my mind to the music of the stream.” [4] The South-southeast orientation gives the illusion that the stream flows, not alongside the house, but through it.
Fallingwater floorplan (diagram: Arsenalbubs, CC0 1.0)
Fallingwater floorplan (diagram: Arsenalbubs, CC0 1.0)

Fastest draw in the Midwest

Perhaps the most famous tale to come out of the lore of Fallingwater is the improbable story that Wright, after receiving the commission, procrastinated for nine months until he was forced to draw up the complete plans while his patron was driving the 140 miles from Milwaukee to Taliesin. However, the essential story is validated by several witnesses. Apprentice Edgar Taffel recalled that after talking with Kaufmann on the phone, Wright:
"briskly emerged from his office...sat down at the table set with the plot plan and started to draw…The design just poured out of him. 'Liliane and E.J. will have tea on the balcony…they’ll cross the bridge to walk in the woods…' Pencils being used up as fast as we could sharpen them....Erasures, overdrawing, modifying. Flipping sheets back and forth. Then, the bold title across the bottom ‘Fallingwater.’ A house has to have a name." [5]
There seems to be agreement that the whole process took about two hours.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Mill Run, Pennsylvania, 1935, color pencil on tracing paper, 15 3/8 x 27 1/4 inches © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Mill Run, Pennsylvania, 1935, color pencil on tracing paper, 15 3/8 x 27 1/4 inches © The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

Organic architecture

Edgar Kaufmann Jr. pointed out that Wright’s famous concept of “Organic Architecture” stems from his
background which includes the belief that human life is part of nature. Wright even incorporated a rock outcropping that projected above the living room floor into his massive central hearth, further uniting the house with the earth. “Can you say,” Wright challenged his apprentices, “when your building is complete, that the landscape is more beautiful than it was before?” [6]
In his book, Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House, Franklin Toker wrote that,
"this delicate synthesis of nature and the built environment probably counts as the main reason why Fallingwater is such a well-loved work. The contouring of the house into cantilevered ledges responds so sympathetically to the rock strata of the stream banks that it does make Bear Run a more wondrous landscape than it had been before." [7]
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1937 (photo: Jeremy Weate, CC BY 2.0)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1937 (photo: Jeremy Weate, CC BY 2.0)
Wright further emphasizes the connection with nature by liberal use of glass; the house has no walls facing the falls, only a central stone core for the fireplaces and stone columns. This provides elongated vistas leading the eye out to the horizon and the woods. Art historian Vincent Scully has pointed out that this reflects “an image of Modern man caught up in constant change and flow, holding on…to whatever seems solid but no longer regarding himself as the center of the world.” [8] The architect’s creative use of “corner turning windows” without
causes corners to vanish. Wright even bows to nature by bending a
beam to accommodate a pre-existing tree.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, detail with tree (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), 1937 (photo: Daderot, CC0 1.0)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, detail with tree (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), 1937 (photo: Daderot, CC0 1.0)

Influences

Although he denied it, Wright was influenced by every conceivable architectural style, but Fallingwater owes little to his previous designs (the only exceptions being perhaps the use of irregular stones that are also found on Taliesin and his interest in strong horizontal lines). At Fallingwater, he appears to be more concerned with responding to the European Modernist design that he had in part inspired—but that had since eclipsed him. In effect, he set out to beat the Europeans at their own game, using elements of their idiom. We see, for example, inspiration drawn from the balconies of Gropius’ design for the Chicago Tribune Tower competition, though instead of the stark white of the
, he paints his balconies a warmer, earthen tone in deference to nature and perhaps the Adobe dwellings of the American Southwest.
Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, competition entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower, 1922, perspective drawing, 22.5 x 13.3 cm, gelatin silver print sheet (Harvard Art Museums)
Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, competition entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower, 1922, perspective drawing, 22.5 x 13.3 cm, gelatin silver print sheet (Harvard Art Museums)

Fallingwater falling down?

The Kaufmanns loved Wright’s radical proposal to literally suspend the house over the waterfall. But Edgar Kaufmann Sr., ever the pragmatic business man (who had also studied engineering for a year at Yale) prudently sent a copy of Wright’s blueprints to his engineer; who found the ground unstable and did not recommend that he proceed with the house. Wright was not happy with his client’s lack of faith, but permitted an increase in the number and diameter of the structure's steel reinforcements—Kaufmann agreed to proceed. It's worth noting that the engineer’s warnings later proved valid, an issue that “haunted” Wright for the rest of his life.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Frederick C. Robie House, Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress; photo: Cervin Robinson, CC0 1.0)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Frederick C. Robie House, Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress; photo: Cervin Robinson, CC0 1.0)
Wright is famous for pushing the architectural envelope for dramatic effect. We see this is in the vast
wooden roof of Robie House in Chicago. In Fallingwater he chose ferro-concrete for his cantilevers—this use of reinforced concrete for the long suspended balconies was revolutionary. He boldly extended the balcony of the second floor master bedroom soaring six feet beyond the living room below.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, steps to stream (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Bear Run, Pennsylvania (photo: James Finister, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, steps to stream (Edgar J. Kaufmann House), Bear Run, Pennsylvania (photo: James Finister, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
However, due to the lack of proper support, cracks began appearing in the balcony floors soon after they were poured. Over the years since, cracks have been repeatedly repaired as the cantilevers continued to sag. By 2001, some of the 15 foot cantilevers had fallen more than 7 inches. To avoid a complete collapse, an system was devised using tensioned cables to correct the problem and stabilize Wright’s masterwork.
Almost from the day of its completion, Fallingwater was celebrated around the world. The house and its architect were featured in major publications including the cover of Time Magazine. Over the years its fame has only increased. According to Franklin Toker, Fallingwater’s most important contribution to Modern Architecture is surely the "acceptance of Modern architecture itself."
Notes:
[1] “called to testify in a court case. Asked to identify himself, he announced that he was the world’s greatest architect. When asked how he could make such a statement, he replied, with visible enjoyment and a gleam in his eye, that he had no choice, he was under oath.” From Ada Louise Huxtable, Frank Lloyd Wright: A Life (Penguin Books, 2008).
[2] Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style (New York: W.W. Norton, 1932), pp. 41–43.
[3] Frank Lloyd Wright, "In the cause of architecture: the 'International Style,'" A Taliesin Square-Paper (February 1953).
[4] Donald W. Hoppen, The Seven Ages of Frank Lloyd Wright: The Creative Process (New York: Dover Publications, 1993), p. 23.
[5] Edgard Tafel, Years with Frank Lloyd Wright: Apprentice to Genius (Minneola, NY: Courier Dover Publications, 1979).
[6] Hoppen, p. 97.
[7] Franklin Toker, Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003).
[8] Meryle Secrest, Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 168.

Additional resources
Architectural drawings of Fallingwater at the Library of Congress: plans, elevations.

Essay by Charles Wiebe

Want to join the conversation?

  • leafers seedling style avatar for user Demitria
    What year was this essay written?
    (4 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Titto Dannie Jay
    why was it called Fallingwater?
    (0 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user reedj
    Is the description of 'Fallingwater' as, "organic architecture" universally known as an architectural term? As an artist, I would call 'Fallingwater' extremely geometric and modern, but that it's dynamism is in its juxtaposition with the organic, natural, dynamic forms around it. Even if we were to consider 'Fallingwater' as the construct in conjunction with the natural space around it, I would hesitate to define it as "organic" but rather emphasize the quality of the geometry in dialogue with nature as it's defining feature.
    (3 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user chris.martin
      The term "organic architecture" is an idea from Frank Lloyd Wright's mind. It is the idea of a higher power's natural "plan" (not a tree, but God's ideal of "tree," as an example of that concept) applied to architecture. You can get a real sense of the beginning of this concept in his geometric abstractions of plant forms for stained glass in his early work (although I don't think he coined the term "organic architecture" until much later). In "Frank Lloyd Wright: A Film By Ken Burns & Lynn Novick," one of his apprentices explains it as "...more natural than nature itself."
      (1 vote)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Vang, mai
    what is the name of the photographer who took the photo of Fallingwater and also who published it out on time magazine? please answer anyone, if you know !
    (2 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Cherry Belle Callelero
    Can you explain more about Fallingwater's cantilevers? Thank you.
    (2 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user chris.martin
      The cantilever is a structure that is attached to a solid, stable base on one end, but is not connected at the other. Think of a diving board. Falling Water is anchored to the boulder on which it sits and its lowest cantilever juts out over the Bear Run creek and waterfall. The cantilever above that is turned ninety degrees to the first level and sticks outward over the waterfall. The cantilevered floors began to sag due to some engineering problems and there was real concern that the cantilevers would fail. Around 2001, engineers began a huge renovation, removing the stone floors (mapping and numbering every stone) and installing huge cables like giant guitar strings under the floor which, when tensioned, arrested the sagging of the cantilevers and even brought them back toward level. They could not bring the concrete structures back to true level again because it would have put too much strain on the house. The entire renovation cost more than $11 million dollars which is 71 times the cost to build it in 1937 and 367 times more than the original budget of $30,000 (Wright went way over budget at $155,000).
      (2 votes)
  • duskpin sapling style avatar for user Melanie Preston
    I have been studying materials that are good for building, and find it unique to see the different materials being used. for starters I don't think I would be a fan of the straw built structures as many have gone to flames over the years, but my current interest of materials to study is papercrete, I think it has potential in certain locations with the right weather... as for this article, it was quite enjoyable, but where did he come to the conclusion of which material he should use whilst building? great structure architect tho.
    (2 votes)
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  • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Gabriella Johnson
    Was Fallingwater ever used for everyday life? Like living in it and all of that? Or was it solely built for art?
    (2 votes)
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  • hopper cool style avatar for user Ms. V
    I wonder how many architects of any period in time could design a Fallingwater in two hours as a passenger in a car or as documented in other reports in about two hours time. The man was a genius although Kaufman's engineer had a point about the balconies - Kaufman went forward with the building and the design and in retrospect - I am glad he did. Does anybody know how the issue with the balconies haunted Wright's career for the rest of his life as the article documents?
    (3 votes)
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  • starky seed style avatar for user Sebastian Bookmiller
    How many windows does it have?
    (1 vote)
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  • hopper cool style avatar for user Ms. V
    Another thought was the following statement by Wright: “Can you say” Wright challenged his apprentices “when your building is complete, that the landscape is more beautiful than it was before?” - He was a true organic architect. I did not know that Wright considered himself a Transcendentalist - I thought the Transcendentalists were mostly from Concord like Thoreau and Emerson. Does anybody know anything about this Transcendentalist belief system that Wright supposedly had?
    (2 votes)
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