Glazing, set in red-painted steel frames, runs in continuous bands around three sides of the main living and dining room, opening at the corners in celebration of the spatial freedom given by the cantilevered structure. The spaces within Fallingwater are at once surprisingly small, with only 2,885 square feet of enclosed space, and incredibly generous, opening in three directions to the east, south, and west onto large exterior terraces that almost double the floor area of the house. As a result of these two complementary systems of construction, Fallingwater is anchored to the ground by the stone piers even as its spaces float along with the motion of the stream. The floors of the house are constructed of broad horizontal cantilevered reinforced concrete slabs that appear to float effortlessly over the stream, for the structural beams are hidden between the flagstone floors and plastered ceilings. The house is anchored to the earth by vertical piers of sandstone quarried 500 feet from the waterfall, the stones set to resemble the natural strata of the rock exposed along the streambed. Fallingwater is also the greatest example of Wright’s capacity to draw the spaces and forms of his architecture out of the very ground on which it is built. As a result, it is the sound of the waterfall, not the view of it, that permeates the experience of Fallingwater. However, Wright sited the house to the north of the stream, above the waterfall, so that the house opens to the south sun. Kaufmann had expected the house to be built to the south of the stream, looking north to the waterfall. ![]() Wright’s design is first and foremost a brilliant piece of site planning. In a famous story told by his Fellowship apprentices, Wright drew up the design in the two hours that it took Kaufmann to drive from Milwaukee to Spring Green on a Sunday morning in September 1935. After visiting the site for the Kaufmann house in 1934, a full nine months passed without any drawings or other evidence that Wright was working on the design of the house. Founded following the Great Depression, the Taliesin Fellowship was instrumental in Wright’s emergence at the age of 70 from 15 years of obscurity, signaled by the construction of the Johnson Wax Building (1939, Racine, Wisconsin), Taliesin West (1940, Scottsdale, Arizona), the first “Usonian House” for Herbert Jacobs (1937, Madison, Wiscon sin), and Fallingwater. National Historic Landmark (1966).Fallingwater, as the architect Frank Lloyd Wright named the house that he designed for Edgar and Lillian Kaufmann, was commissioned shortly after the Kaufmanns’ son, Edgar, Jr., joined Wright’s newly formed Taliesin Fellowship in Spring Green, Wisconsin. ![]() National Register of Historic Places (1974) as well as U.S. Time magazine considers Fallingwater to be Frank Lloyd Wright's "most beautiful job " and is one of the top 28 places to see before you die as released by Smithsonian Life. In 1964, it was opened to the public as a museum and since then, Fallingwater has seen over 5 million people walk through. The house boasts priceless works of art by artists like Picasso as well as other notable artists. The Kaufmann family used the home as a weekend getaway between the years of 1937-1963. He used reinforced concrete and steel to provide the needed support. Wright faced many trials when building the house such as how were he was going to make a bank of a waterfall support a house and its inhabitants. ![]() At first, Kaufmann was not too keen on the idea, but finally warmed up enough for the plan to move forward. ![]() Which means the waterfall would run under the house. In his design that he made in the two hours before the proposal, he drew the house to be sitting ON the waterfall. Kaufmann was under the impression that the house would sit below the waterfall so it would be part of the scenery. Kaufmann contacted Wright to build a house near a waterfall on Bear Run.
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