Fallingwater House

Guggenheim Museum, New York

Office Chair

(1867-1959)

Theories and approach

Frank Lloyd Wright tried to capture in his architecture a harmonisation of modern spaces with nature. He created houses to suit particular climates and terrains using materials appropriate to the region – houses in mountainous areas, for example, were made of stones from surrounding hills.

He sought an integral, three-dimensional expression in which the exterior conveyed interior volumes and in which human scale influenced all parts. Commenting on a hilltop building, he said: “I never build houses on top of a hill. I build them around it like an eyebrow.” This urge towards “organic architecture” may partly explain why Wright preferred to use materials taken directly from nature – rugged stone walls, rough granite floors and heavy unfinished timbers.

In his lifetime, Wright was responsible for designing extraordinary public buildings and private residences as well as ambitious urban-scale projects like Broadacre City.

Theory and approach in example one

The Fallingwater House displays Wright’s theories by successfully integrating architecture and nature. Cantilevered concrete trays form floating horizontals and create a vital, life-enhancing space. There are hardly any internal walls, the sense of shelter being provided by overhangs and screen-like windows.

The house is an extension of the rock from which it comes. It is strong, irregular and rugged. The smooth and light-coloured balconies reflect the surrounding plates of stone that have been eroded by falling water. The glass captures the transparency and vitality of water by reflecting the trees around the building.

Consideration of possibilities

When EJ Kauffman commissioned Wright to build his home, the architect walked around the 2,000 acres of family land near Pittsburg, USA, with his client. After looking at fields, ravines, hillsides and wooded land Wright asked Kauffman: “Where do you like to sit?” Kauffman pointed to a massive rock commanding a view over a waterfall and down into a glen. That stone seat became the hearthstone in a house called Fallingwater.

Wright wanted his clients to be able to have tea on a balcony then walk across a bridge into the woods. He wanted to change and develop the building’s form and appearance as it was being built so it might encapsulate the essence of its natural surrounding – a sort of organic building. Trees were preserved as the building took shape around them.
The vertical walls were stone on solid rock, with horizontal slabs of concrete creating floors. The house was approached from the back – visitors found a hard rock face on their right, the entrance door to the left. And the whole house was filled with the sound of the waterfall.

Final outcome

Fallingwater House is an open-plan residence that looks like it has been sculpted from the landscape. Raw materials from the surrounding environment are echoed in the walls and timber facade. The position of the house means it captures intense forest smells and the sounds of nature.

Theory and approach in other designs
Guggenheim Museum, New York (1943-59)

This building is a gentle, descending spiral where one floor flows into another. Visitors pass through a dark zone into a beautiful space with light streaming in from the roof. The smooth, curved layers of the building sit in complete contrast with the grid design of New York city.

Broadacre City (1934-5)

Wright’s model of Broadacre City represented a four-square-mile unit of the United States, designed to be neither urban or rural but an intermingling of both. He intended that the population would be spread across the land evenly, creating several local centres rather than one metropolis. Congestion would disappear and the integration of people with the land would help create more friendly communities. He believed that you could bring people together socially and culturally by providing more public space.

Furniture design
Office chair (1952-6)
For every project – house, office building or church – Wright designed furniture. He didn’t think of furniture as individual pieces but saw it as an integral part of a building. But to Wright chairs were something of “a demon”. He hated “stuffed boxes for sitting in.”
At the same time he found it difficult to understand the seated posture of humans. “The only attractive posture of relaxation is that of reclining,” he said. As a result, many of his chairs were, by his own admission, heavy, clumsy or angular. “All my life I have been black and blue bumping into my own furniture.”

Between 1952-6 Wright designed the H C Price Tower, an office and apartment building in Oklahoma. The working and living spaces were “folded” between concrete fins which contained services and acted as cantilevers to anchor the building. For the offices, Wright designed an armchair in aluminium and fabric. The hexagonal shaped back reflected the decoration on interior walls.