My husband and I were in Pittsburgh for a few days this week. On our way back home yesterday, we took a detour to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece of architectural design, Fallingwater. It’s a home that he designed for the family of Edgar Kaufmann, a wealthy Pittsburgh department-store owner. Fallingwater was built between 1936 and 1939. The house is cantilevered out over a 30’ waterfall and as a result it looks as though it floats over the Bear Run river. To see it in person is awe-inspiring. The house is so well hidden among the trees, so when you do see it, it’s spectacular!
Wright himself designed the majority of the furnishings in the home.
He designed a series of vanishing windows, which open outward from wall corners, leaving no panes to obstruct the wilderness view.
Here are some interesting facts about Fallingwater:
- The total project price of $155,000, translates to $11.4 million in 2009 dollars.
- The main house uses 5,330 square feet. (2885 sq. ft. interior; 2445 sq. ft. terraces) and the guest house uses 1,700 square feet.
- Fallingwater is the only major Wright-designed house to open to the public with its furnishings, artwork, and setting intact.
- Wright was chosen to the design because, like the Kaufmann’s, he had a love of nature.
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Here’s a small sampling of pictures that I took during the tour. All pictures are from the outside, as guests aren’t allowed to take pictures inside the house.
Here is the front of the house as it appears over the water fall.
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This is a view of the waterfall that runs below it. Pittsburgh received a lot of rain this week so the water in the Bear Run river was particularly high.
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The house is cantilevered out from rock in the back of the house (right side of picture).
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Fallingwater was constructed of sandstone quarried on the property, and the house was built by local craftsmen. The stone serves to separate reinforced concrete “trays”, forming living and bedroom levels, dramatically cantilevered over the stream.
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Here is the back of the house. It’s really cool how the supports of the house are built into the rock.
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Here are a couple of fun facts that caught me by surprise. In Alfred Htchcock’s 1959 film “North by Northwest”, the fictional house on Mt. Rushmore, “Vandamm,” was modeled after Fallingwater. Also, novelist Ayn Rand based much of her 1943 classic, The Fountainhead, on Wright and Fallingwater. After the completion of Fallingwater in 1937, Time magazine honored him by putting the house on the cover and proclaimed it the architect’s “most beautiful job.” In my opinion, it truly is a work of genius and I do recommend you visit it, because seeing is believing.
Simone