Fallingwater turns 75

[mark handler]

One of America’s greatest residences, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, is celebrating its 75th anniversary and fifth restoration. In 1936, the design was astonishing. Cantilevered over a small Pennsylvanian Creek for the Kaufmann family, there was little design precedence for it and few since. Fallingwater, like many of Wright’s structures, leaked and the overstressed steel and concrete started to fail immediately. Wright loved to use new materials and stretch the limits of known science and engineering. Today architects can’t afford such experimenting. Materials or structural systems that haven’t withstood the test of time or extensive laboratory experiments should be avoided. That goes for the so called “green products” that claim sustainability but haven’t been around long enough to be proven.

Wright spent his latter years at his Arizona home office, Taliesin West, and was once visited by a reporter in a torrential downpour. Upon entering the abundantly leaking main building and after searching the hollowed halls for the owner, the reporter found Wright huddled in the only dry place in the building — the fireplace.

 

[conarb]

During the 70s I went to a lecture about Fallingwater by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. in San Francisco, it was fascinating, to me Fallingwater exemplifies the freedom that our architects and country should be all about, but in this age of totalitarian codes, especially energy codes to "save the planet", there will never be another Frank Lloyd Wright. I think any civilization's architecture should trump all other concerns, I took a trip to Brasilia to see Oscar Niemeyer's works, the freedom of code-free construction, like stairways without railings, was breathtaking. BTW, Niemeyer is still working and producing at 103 years of age. not demanding to retire at the public expense at 50, and he's an active avowed Communist!

An online friend just toured Taliesen West and took some nice pictures.