Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater

This book is very useful for giving you both a quick overview of Lloyd's approach and how Fallingwater manifests his work. The text is incisisive and despite its small size, the pictures are very good and instructive. Of value before or after seeing the house.

Carla Lind's small-format, 58-page book on `Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater' is an excellent introduction both to this remarkable structure, but also to the interesting life of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The book is very short, and could almost qualify as a Cliff's Notes version of Wright's architectural style and principles, as well as being a remarkably thorough introduction to Fallingwater, which is perhaps the most famous modern home in America. Built in the midst of the Great Depression, `Fallingwater' was one of the projects that resurrected Frank Lloyd Wright's faltering career. His own famous Wisconsin home, `Taliesin', burned twice and was ultimately seized during bankruptcy and divorce proceedings. For the ten years prior to getting the nod to design Fallingwater, only five commissions of Wright's were built. However, during this time, Wright was not unproductive. He wrote his autobiography (which was later revised in 1943), began planning for Taliesin West, and eventually earned a cover of `Time' magazine as Fallingwater was being built. Wright was reactionary against the International Style, which took hold after 1932. Wright had been partly responsible for the new aesthetic, and was in fact influenced by its developments, but he recoiled at the idea, and wanted his work to have more spirit, more poetry, than the austere and functional/mechanical designs in vogue seemed to hold. `Fallingwater, Wright's polemic response to modernism, arises from ideas and imagery that flowed in such profusion from his pen and pencil in the years around 1900.' - Joseph Connors, Wright on Nature and the Machine Fallingwater would, in fact, not seem out of place in the Bauhaus school of design, though Wright would probably not have appreciated the connection. `It was an extraordinary moment with the full force of Wright's concept became apparent. Father enjoyed bold ideas and challenges, and my mother found sources of graceful livability in an unusual setting.' - Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Fallingwater Edgar and Lillian Kaufmann commissioned the project that was destined to reinvigorate Wright's career. A wealthy Pittsburgh couple, they were noted for interest in artistic and imaginative endeavours. The Kaufmanns' son was an apprentice at Taliesin in 1934 when they visited and became inspired to hire Wright to design their new home in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. It was a perfect site for Wright's imagination. `If Fallingwater is viewed as a perfect marriage of building and site, the leading partner is nature. Wright's habitat is an extension of the Appalachian terrain in which it rests so respectfully. Deep in the rugged forest, where dogwood, rhododendron, oak, maple, birch, and hickory flourish, Bear Run hurries to meet the Youghiogheny River in the valley below. The Kaufmanns, committed to conservation of the site, regarded the largest of Bear Run's rocky waterfualls as the heart of their property, a place to picnic and lie in the sun.' The house is anc

"Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater," by Carla Lind, is one of a series of books that celebrate the work of this visionary architect. This volume in the series is devoted to Fallingwater, the amazing modern house designed by Wright in 1935 for Liliane and Edgar J. Kaufmann. This is a "mini-book," but despite its small size, it is an impressive tribute to a landmark of home architecture. Carla Lind's concise but informative text is complemented by many glorious full-color photographs of Fallingwater. There are both exterior and interior shots that capture many of the home's memorable features: the rough stone walls, the cantilevered balconies, the bold use of glass, the remarkable asymmetrical fireplaces, and more. There are also some fascinating black-and-white historical photos.Lind also includes a bibliography and a chronology. The text is further complemented by a series of sidebar quotes from Wright, Edgar Kaufmann Jr., and others. I have visited Fallingwater. It is a stunning architectural achievement which, I think, no book could completely capture. But Carla Lind has done a good job of celebrating the spirit of this remarkable house.