Fallingwater - Pennsylvania

Andy Song

During July, I attended a 4-week pre-college architecture program at Carnegie Mellon University. One of the highlights of the program was a visit to the renowned Fallingwater, a house designed for the wealthy Kaufmann family in 1935. Fallingwater was designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who rose to prominence as the creator of organic architecture and a forefather of the Prairie style. While the house isn't as impressive in pictures (partly due to being obscured by greenery), it was an absolutely breathtaking sight in person.

Horizontality Theme

One of Fallingwater's main themes is its horizontality, which is a prominent trait of the Prairie style of architecture that Frank Lloyd Wright was so well-known for. This emphasis on the horizontal in architecture conveys a sense of stability, balance, and grounding.

This is especially shown through Fallingwater's low ceilings, window frame designs, and numerous cantilever balconies -- long horizontal extensions only supported at one end.

However, there's a drawback to the cantilevers: after several decades, the cantilevers began to sag and crack. As a result, Fallingwater underwent major repair in 2002 to fortify the cantilevers with steel. Interestingly enough, Frank Lloyd Wright did not originally build the cantilevers with steel as he thought steel would actually collapse earlier than concrete.

Another minor theme of Fallingwater was the idea of a semicircle, which found its way into many parts of Fallingwater's design. For example, on the right you can see a desk on the second floor has a semicircular cutout to allow the window to rotate inwards and open.

These themes greatly help in establishing a sense of unity in Fallingwater's design. Too much variation is chaotic and messy, while too little is monotone and boring.

Materials & Construction

Fallingwater was mostly constructed with stone, wood, glass, concrete and steel. These materials come together beautifully to establish harmony in the design; for example, to the left is a picture of the windows and window frames disappearing into the textured stone walls, a repeated design feature throughout the whole house.

A major claim to fame for Fallingwater was its usage of concrete, which at the time was still considered a novel material. The cantilever balconies were constructed by pouring concrete into a wooden grid formwork -- a temporary mould that shapes the concrete and is removed once the concrete dries.