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#6. Falling Water

The Falling Water House

The documentary film about one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s greatest masterpieces. In 1935, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a country house for the Kaufmann family over a small stream in rural southwestern Pennsylvania , 43 miles (69 km) southeast of Pittsburgh,built in 1936 -1939 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.  Nearly 6 million people have visited the house as of January 2008. About 135,000 visitors per year.

falling-water-1Falling Water Location: Mill Run, PA Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright Year: 1939

Radical for its cantilevered design, and stunning for its integration with setting, Falling Water is Frank Lloyd Wright’s most significant achievement. It is also one of the places you must visit before death.

Fallingwater or Kaufmann Residence is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, 43 miles (69 km) southeast of Pittsburgh.  The home was built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run in the Mill Run section of Stewart TownshipFayette County, Pennsylvania, in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains.

Hailed by Time shortly after its completion as Wright’s “most beautiful job,” it is listed among Smithsonians Life List of 28 places “to visit before you die.”  It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. In 1991, members of theAmerican Institute of Architects named the house the “best all-time work of American architecture” and in 2007, it was ranked twenty-ninth on the list of America’s Favorite Architecture according to the AIA.

History

Almost forgotten at age 67, Frank Lloyd Wright was given the opportunity to re-emerge on the architectural scene with his design and construction of three buildings. His three great works of the late 1930s—Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin, and the Herbert Jacobs house in Madison, Wisconsin—brought him back into prominence in the architectural community.

Edgar Kaufmann Sr. was a successful Pittsburgh businessman and president of Kaufmann’s Department Store. His son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., studied architecture briefly under Wright.

Edgar Sr. had been prevailed upon by his son and Wright to itemize the cost of Wright’s utopian model city. When completed, it was displayed at Kaufmann’s Department Store.

The Kaufmans lived in “La Tourelle”, a French Norman estate designed by celebrated Pittsburgh architect Benno Janssen (1874–1964) in the stylish Fox Chapel suburb in 1923 for Edgar J. Kaufmann.

Fallingwater with falls

Wright visited Bear Run on Tuesday, December 18.  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 is not worthy of your parents…”  The remark spurred the Kaufmanns’ interest in something worthier. Fallingwater would become the end result.

The Kaufmanns owned property outside Pittsburgh with a waterfall and cabins they used as a rural retreat. When the cabins deteriorated, Mr. Kaufmann contacted Wright.

In November 1934, Wright visited Bear Run and asked for a survey of the area around the waterfall. One was prepared by Fayette Engineering Company of Uniontown, Pennsylvania including all the site’s boulders, trees and topography, and forwarded to Wright in March 1935.

As reported by Wright’s apprentices at Taliesin, Kaufmann Sr. was in Milwaukee on September 22, nine months after their initial meeting, and called Wright at home early Sunday morning to surprise him with the news that he would be visiting Wright that day before lunch. He could not wait to see Wright’s plans. Wright had told Kaufmann in earlier communication that he had been working on the plans, but had not actually drawn anything. After breakfast that morning, amid a group of very nervous apprentices, Wright calmly drew the plans in the two hours in which it took Kaufmann to drive to the Taliesin.

It was at this time that Kaufmann first became aware that Wright intended to build the home above the falls, rather than below them to afford a view of the cascades as he had expected.  It is said that Kaufmann was initially very upset that Wright had designed the house to sit atop the falls. He had wanted the house located on the southern bank of Bear Run, directly facing the falls. He had told Wright that was his favorite aspect of the Bear Run property.

Design and Construction

Once Wright had decided the location of the house, he had the obvious problem of building it there. The location of the north bank of Bear Run was not large enough to provide a foundation for a typically built Wright house.

Beyond this issue, there were also the clients’ needs that had to be met. The Kaufmanns planned to entertain large groups of people, so the house would need to be larger than the plot allowed. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Kaufmann requested separate bedrooms as well as a bedroom for their adult son and an additional guest room.

Wright’s solution to the problem of space came when he decided on a cantilevered structure.  The structural design for Fallingwater was undertaken by Wright in association with staff engineers Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters, who had been responsible for the columns featured in Wright’s revolutionary design for the Johnson Wax Headquarters.

Preliminary plans were issued to Kaufmann for approval on October 15, 1935,[11] after which Wright made a further visit to the site and provided a cost estimate for the job. In December 1935 an old rock quarry was reopened to the west of the site to provide the stones needed for the house’s walls. Wright only made periodic visits during construction, instead assigning his apprentice Robert Mosher as his permanent on-site representative.  The final working drawings were issued by Wright in March 1936 with work beginning on the bridge and main house in April 1936.

The construction was plagued by conflicts between Wright, Kaufmann, and the construction contractor. Uncomfortable with what he saw as Wright’s insufficient experience using reinforced concrete, Kaufmann had the architect’s daring cantilever design reviewed by a firm of consulting engineers. Upon receiving their report, Wright took offense and immediately requested Kaufmann to return his drawings and indicated he was withdrawing from the project. Kaufmann relented to Wright’s gambit and the engineer’s report was subsequently buried within a stone wall of the house.

The strong horizontal and vertical lines are a distinctive feature of Fallingwater.

The construction was plagued by conflicts between Wright, Kaufmann, and the construction contractor. Uncomfortable with what he saw as Wright’s insufficient experience using reinforced concrete, Kaufmann had the architect’s daring cantilever design reviewed by a firm of consulting engineers. Upon receiving their report, Wright took offense and immediately requested Kaufmann to return his drawings and indicated he was withdrawing from the project. Kaufmann relented to Wright’s gambit and the engineer’s report was subsequently buried within a stone wall of the house.

After a visit to the site in June 1936, Wright rejected the stonemasonry of the bridge, which had to be rebuilt.

For the cantilevered floors, Wright and his team used upside down T-shaped beams integrated into a monolithic concrete slab which both formed the ceiling of the space below and provided resistance against compression. The contractor, Walter Hall, also an engineer, produced independent computations and argued for increasing the reinforcing steel in the first floor’s slab. Wright refused the suggestion. While some sources state that it was the contractor who quietly doubled the amount of reinforcement, according to others, it was at Kaufmann’s request that his consulting engineers redrew Wright’s reinforcing drawings and doubled the amount of steel specified by Wright.

In addition, the contractor did not build in a slight upward incline in the formwork for the cantilever to compensate for the settling and deflection of the cantilever. Once the concrete formwork was removed, the cantilever developed a noticeable sag. Upon learning of the steel addition without his approval, Wright recalled Mosher.

With Kaufmann’s approval, the consulting engineers 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 had 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

The home and guest house cost US$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.

The total project price of $155,000, adjusted for inflation, is the equivalent of approximately $2.6 million in 2012. A reflection of the relative cost of the project in its time is that the cost of restoration alone in 2009 was reported at $11.4 million.

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. Nearly six million people have visited the house as of January 2008. Despite its location in a remote corner of Pennsylvania, the house (according to the informational pamphlet distributed on the grounds) hosts more than 150,000 visitors each year.

Kaufmann, Jr. years later said, “He [Wright] understood that people were creatures of nature, hence an architecture which conformed to nature would conform to what was basic in people. For example, although all of Falling Water [sic] is opened by broad bands of windows, people inside are sheltered as in a deep cave, secure in the sense of the hill behind them.”

Style

The interior of Fallingwater depicting a sitting area with furnishings designed by Wright.

Fallingwater stands as one of Wright’s greatest masterpieces both for its dynamism and for its integration with the striking natural surroundings. Fallingwater has been described as an architectural tour de force of Wright’s organic philosophy.  Wright’s passion for Japanese architecture was strongly reflected in the design of Fallingwater, particularly in the importance of interpenetrating exterior and interior spaces and the strong emphasis placed on harmony between man and nature. Contemporary Japanese architect Tadao Ando has stated: “I think Wright learned the most important aspect of architecture, the treatment of space, from Japanese architecture. When I visited Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, I found that same sensibility of space. But there was the additional sounds of nature that appealed to me.”

The extent of Wright’s genius in integrating every detail of his design can only be hinted at in photographs. This organically designed private residence was intended to be a nature retreat for its owners. The house is well known for its connection to the site; it is built on top of an active waterfall which flows beneath the house.

The fireplace hearth in the living room integrates boulders found on the site and upon which the house was built — ledge rock which protrudes up to a foot through the living room floor was left in place to demonstrably link the outside with the inside. Wright had initially intended that the ledge be cut flush with the floor, but this had been one of the Kaufmann family’s favorite sunning spots, so Mr. Kaufmann suggested that it be left as it was.  The stone floors are waxed, while the hearth is left plain, giving the impression of dry rocks protruding from a stream.

Integration with the setting extends even to small details. For example, where glass meets stone walls there is no metal frame; rather, the glass and its horizontal dividers were run into a caulked recess in the stonework so that the stone walls appear uninterrupted by glazing. From the cantilevered living room, a stairway leads directly down to the stream below, and in a connecting space which connects the main house with the guest and servant level, a natural spring drips water inside, which is then channeled back out. Bedrooms are small, some with low ceilings to encourage people outward toward the open social areas, decks, and outdoors.

250px-FallingwaterPathwayDriveway leading to the entrance of Fallingwater.

Bear Run and the sound of its water permeate the house, especially during the spring when the snow is melting, and locally quarried stone walls and cantilevered terraces resembling the nearby rock formations are meant to be in harmony. The design incorporates broad expanses of windows and balconies which reach out into their surroundings. The staircase leading down from the living room to the stream (mentioned above) is accessed via movable horizontal glass panes. In conformance with Wright’s views, the main entry door is away from the falls.

On the hillside above the main house stands a four-bay carport, servants’ quarters, and a guest house. These attached outbuildings were built two years later using the same quality of materials and attention to detail as the main house. The guest quarters feature a spring-fed swimming pool which overflows and drains to the river below.

After Fallingwater was deeded to the public, three carport bays were enclosed at the direction of Kaufmann, Jr., to be used by museum visitors to view a presentation at the end of their guided tours on the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (to which the home was entrusted). Kaufmann, Jr. designed its interior himself, to specifications found in other Fallingwater interiors by Wright.

Fallingwater inspired the fictional Vandamm residence at Mount Rushmore in the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest.

Wright had planned in the beginning to have the house blend in to its natural settings in rural Pennsylvania.  In doing this he limited his color choices to two colors. The colors he chose were light ochre for the concrete and his signature Cherokee red for the steel.

Repair Work

250px-FallingwaterCantilever570320cvThe cantilevers at Fallingwater.

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy conducted an intensive program to preserve and restore Fallingwater. From 1988, a New York City-based architecture and engineering firm was responsible for the materials conservation of Fallingwater. During this time the firm reviewed original construction documents and subsequent repair reports, evaluated conditions and probes, analyzed select materials, designed the re-roofing and re-waterproofing of roofs and terraces, specified the restoration for original steel casement windows and doors, reconstructed failed concrete reconstructions, restored the masonry, analyzed interior paint finishes, specified interior paint removal methods and re-painting, designed repair methods for concrete and stucco, and developed a new coating system for the concrete.

Given the humid environment directly over running water, mold had proven to be a problem. The elder Kaufmann called Fallingwater “a seven-bucket building” for its leaks, and nicknamed it “Rising Mildew.”  Condensation under roofing membranes was also an issue, due to the lack of damp proofing or thermal breaks.

Fallingwater’s structural system includes a series of very bold reinforced concrete cantilevered balconies which had problems from the beginning. Pronounced deflection of the concrete cantilevers was noticed as soon as formwork was removed at the construction stage. This deflection continued to increase over time, and eventually reached 7 inches (over a 15-foot span).

220px-Fallingwater_miniature_model_at_MRRV,_Carnegie_Science_CenterMiniature replica of the Fallingwater building at MRRVCarnegie Science Centerin Pittsburgh

In 1995, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy commissioned a study of Fallingwater’s structural integrity. Structural engineers analyzed the movement of the cantilevers over time and conducted radar studies of the cantilevers to locate and quantify the reinforcement. These showed that the contractor had indeed added reinforcement over Wright’s plan; nevertheless, the cantilevers were still insufficiently reinforced. In fact, both the concrete and its steel reinforcement were shockingly close to their failure limits. As a result, in 1997, temporary girders were installed beneath the cantilevers to carry their weight.

In 2002, the structure was repaired permanently using post-tensioning. Blocks were joined to the concrete cantilever beams and floor joists, high-strength steel cables were fed through the blocks and exterior concrete walls, and then the cables were tightened using jacks. The floors and walls were then restored, leaving Fallingwater’s interior and exterior appearance unchanged. The cantilevers now had sufficient support, and the deflection stopped.

http://www.complex.com/art-design/2011/02/the-top-50-architectural-achievements-of-the-modern-world/falling-water

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