Falling Water: The Kaufmann And Frank Lloyd Wright

Humans originally created simple shelters for safety and warmth, but as humanity grew intellectually, socially, and industrially the idea of the house changed to also mean an extension of the family. What someone does or does not do with a house’s interior, exterior, and landscape could be a subtle or blunt statement about the family that resides there. As humanities need to express themselves through their homes grew more sophisticated, several careers developed to meet that demand. Architecture was one of those new careers and Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the leading architects during the twentieth century. Wright designed and supervised the construction of Fallingwater for the Kaufmann family and this family home soon became known as one

The Kaufmann family consisted of Mr. Edgar J. Kaufmann, Mrs. Liliane S. Kaufmann and their son Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. (Appendix 3). Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., introduced Frank Lloyd Wright’s works to his parents and the rest was history (Waggoner). Of course the Kaufmann family had a particular idea of what they wanted rather than what Wright conjured up. The Kaufmann’s were thinking about a “year-round weekend house, with modern conveniences, away from the highway and closer to the waterfalls [Bear Run], where they liked to go sun bathing and picnicking,” in their preferred summer spot (Hoffmann). In 1935 Wright designed Fallingwater and presented his plans to the Kaufmann family (Appendix 4). The actual construction continued from 1936 to 1938 and resulted in a 5,330 square feet house. A later addition included a guesthouse assembled in 1939, which took up 1,700 square feet (Fallingwater). The total cost of the house’s construction was $155,000. If someone tried to replicate Fallingwater today they would spend over two million dollars and would most likely not reach the magnificence of the original dwelling. During Fallingwater’s construction the United States was still in the grips of the Great Depression. However, one could argue that Fallingwater’s construction marked an important turning point not only in the society’s frame of mind but also the economy.

Fallingwater was a “flowering of Wright’s mature theories of organic architecture” and were sharpened by the new found vitality and blazing passion that the interactions with the Kaufmann family ignited (Lind). Fallingwater was designed with a unique asymmetrical and rather organic flair. Because Fallingwater is not perfectly balanced and symmetrical like many other architectural triumphs, the building itself appears to seamlessly blend with the surrounding natural environment. Fallingwater looks more like a “living thing sprouting out of the rocks” than an actual building (Toker). Franklin Toker seemed to describe the impact of Fallingwater the most accurately. Toker stated