Everything about Fallingwater totally explained
» This article is about the house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. For the house designed by Richard Neutra, see Kaufmann Desert House.
Fallingwater, also known as the
Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. Residence, is a
house designed by
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in rural southwestern
Pennsylvania, 50 miles southeast of
Pittsburgh, and is part of the
Pittsburgh Metro Area. The house was built partly over a waterfall in
Bear Run at Rural Route 1 in the Mill Run section of
Stewart Township,
Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in the
Laurel Highlands of the
Allegheny Mountains.
Hailed by
TIME magazine shortly after its completion as Wright's "most beautiful job," the home inspired
Ayn Rand's novel
The Fountainhead, and is listed among
Smithsonian magazine's Life List of 28 places "to visit before ...it's too late." Fallingwater was featured in
Bob Vila's
A&E Network production,
Guide to Historic Homes of America.
History
Edgar Kaufmann Sr. was a successful
Pittsburgh businessman and founder of
Kaufmann's Department Store. His son,
Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., studied
architecture under Wright briefly.
Edgar Sr. had been prevailed upon by his son and Wright to itemize the cost of his utopian model city. When completed, it was displayed at Kaufmann’s Department Store and Wright was a guest in the Kaufmann home, “La Tourelle”, a French Norman masterpiece that celebrated Pittsburgh architect
Benno Janssen (1874-1964) had created in the stylish Fox Chapel suburb in 1923 for Edgar J. Kaufmann. The Kaufmanns and Wright were enjoying refreshments at La Tourelle when Wright, who never missed an opportunity to charm a potential client, said to Edgar Jr. in tones that the elder Kaufmanns were intended to overhear, “Edgar, this house isn't worthy of your parents…” The remark spurred the Kaufmann’s interest in something worthier. Fallingwater would become the end result.
The Kaufmanns owned some
property outside Pittsburgh with a
waterfall and some
cabins. When the cabins at their camp had deteriorated to the point that something had to be rebuilt, Mr. Kaufmann contacted Wright.
In November 1934 Wright visited Bear Run. He asked for a
survey of the area around the waterfall, which he received in March 1935. This survey was prepared by Fayette Engineering Company of
Uniontown, Pennsylvania and included all of the
boulders,
trees and topography. It took 9 months for his ideas for the site to crystallize into a design which was quickly sketched up by Wright in time for a visit by Kaufmann to Taliesin in September 1935.. It was then that Kaufmann first became aware that Wright’s design was for the house to be built above the falls, rather than below the falls as he'd expected.
Design and Construction
The structural design for Fallingwater was undertaken by Wright in association with Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters who had been responsible for the design of the revolutionary columns which were a feature of Wright’s design for the
Johnson Wax Headquarters.
Preliminary plans were issued to Kaufmann for approval on 15 October 1935 after which Wright made a further visit to the site and provided a cost estimate to his client. In December 1935 an old rock quarry was opened to the west of the water to provide the stones needed for the house’s walls.
Wright only made periodic visits to the site during construction, instead assigning Bob Mosher who was one of his apprentices as his permanent on-site representative.
The final working drawings were issued by Wright in March 1936 with work beginning on the bridge and the main house in April 1936.
The construction was plagued by conflicts between Wright, Kaufmann and the construction contractor.
Kaufmann had Wright’s design reviewed by a firm of consulting engineers as he doubted whether Wright had sufficient experience with using reinforced concrete. Upon receiving their report Wright took offense and immediately requested Kaufmann to return his drawings and indicated he was withdrawing from the project. Kaufmann apologized and the engineer’s report was subsequently buried within a stone wall of the house..
After a visit to the site, Wright in June 1936 rejected the concrete work for the bridge, which had to be rebuilt.
For the cantilevered floors Wright and his team used integral upside-down beams with the flat slab on the bottom forming the ceiling of the space below. The contractor, Walter Hall, who was also an engineer, produced independent computations and argued for increasing the reinforcement in the first floor’s slab. Wright rebuffed the contractor. While some sources state that it was the contractor who quietly doubled the amount of reinforcement, it was at Kaufmann’s request that his consulting engineers redrew Wright’s reinforcing drawings and doubled the amount of steel specified by Wright. This additional steel not only added weight to the slab but was set so close together that the concrete often couldn't properly fill in between the steel, which weakened the slab. In addition the contractor didn’t build in a slight upward incline in the formwork for the cantilever to compensate for the settling and drooping of the cantilever once the concrete had cured and the formwork was removed. As a result the cantilever developed a noticeable droop. Upon finding out what had been done Wright temporarily replaced Mosher with Edgar Tafel.
The consulting engineers with Kaufmann’s approval arranged for the contractor to install a supporting wall under the main supporting beam for the west terrace. When Wright discovered it on a site visit he'd Mosher discreetly remove the top course of stones. When Kaufmann later confessed to what had been done, Wright showed him what Mosher had done and pointed out that the cantilever had held up for the past month under test loads without the wall’s support.
In October 1937 the main house was completed.
Cost
At the time of its construction, the house cost a total of $155,000. broken down as follows: house $75,000, finishing and furnishing $22,000, guest house, garage and servants quarters $50,000, architect's fee $8,000. Accounting for inflation, this translates to about $2.3 million in 2007 dollars.
Use of the house
Fallingwater was the family's weekend home from 1937 to 1963. In 1963, Kaufmann, Jr. donated the property to the
Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. In 1964 it was opened to the public as a museum and nearly five million people have visited the house since (as of January 2008). It currently hosts more than 120,000 visitors each year.
The
Western Pennsylvania Conservancy conducted an intensive program to preserve and restore Fallingwater. The structural work was completed in 2002. This involved a detailed study of the original design documents, observing and modeling the structure's behavior, then developing and implementing a repair plan.
The study indicated that the original structural design and plan preparation had been rushed and the cantilevers had significantly inadequate reinforcement. As originally designed by Wright, the cantilevers wouldn't have held their own weight.
The 2002 repair scheme involved temporarily supporting the structure; careful, selective, removal of the floor;
post-tensioning the cantilevers underneath the floor; then restoring the finished floor.
Given the humid environment directly over running water, the house also had mold problems. The senior Mr. Kaufmann called Fallingwater "a seven-bucket building" for its leaks, and nicknamed it "Rising
Mildew" (Brand 1995).
Depictions in other media
There is virtual walkthrough of the house made with the
Half-Life 2 engine, although it´s not a 100% faithful representation. It can be viewed on
Youtube by searching for "falling water hl2". The map can also be downloaded for personal viewing. It was made by an architecture student named Kaspberg using an hl2 mapper.
Picture Gallery
Exterior
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Interior
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Further Information
Get more info on 'Fallingwater'.
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