Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater: Organic Design Essay Example
“Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders' spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground.” Frank Lloyd Wright
In the woods of Pennsylvania, Frank Lloyd Wright's magnum opus, Fallingwater rises from the landscape and presides over Bear Run like a cantilevered king. Hovering across a 30' waterfall the home is as much of a architectural marvel today as it was 70 years ago. This was just as Frank Lloyd Wright intended. Fallingwater was designed by Wright for Liliane and Edgar Kaufmann to replace their very modest cabin at Bear Run. The Kaufmann's enjoyed spending week ends and summers in the quiet,and tranquil Pennsylvania wilderness. Their son, Edgar Kaufmann Jr. was an apprentice at Wright's home and school Taliesin,Spring Green,Wisconsin. After a visit with their son at Taliesin,the Kaufmann's decided they wanted their new vacation home designed by Wright. Less than a year after Wright's first visit to the proposed home site he presented Edgar Kaufmann with the first drawings of his vision for their home. Though not the original choice for the home Kaufmann agreed with Wright when told of his plans to build the home over the waterfall and not at it's base. The original estimate for the cost of the home,and it's furnishings' was $35,000. The actual cost of the main house was $75,000. The addition of the servants quarter's,guest house,and garage was $50,000. Fallingwater is not considered to be an enormous home. The enclosed square footage is 2885,with an additional 2445 square feet in terrace space.
Three years after Wright's first visit to Bear Run the home was completed. Construction was overseen by two apprentices from Taliesin, Edgar Tafel and Bob Mosher.
Wright believed that buildings should appear as though it naturally belonged there. “It is the nature of any organic building to grow from its site,come out of the ground into the light.”1 Wright saw it as a personal
In the woods of Pennsylvania, Frank Lloyd Wright's magnum opus, Fallingwater rises from the landscape and presides over Bear Run like a cantilevered king. Hovering across a 30' waterfall the home is as much of a architectural marvel today as it was 70 years ago. This was just as Frank Lloyd Wright intended. Fallingwater was designed by Wright for Liliane and Edgar Kaufmann to replace their very modest cabin at Bear Run. The Kaufmann's enjoyed spending week ends and summers in the quiet,and tranquil Pennsylvania wilderness. Their son, Edgar Kaufmann Jr. was an apprentice at Wright's home and school Taliesin,Spring Green,Wisconsin. After a visit with their son at Taliesin,the Kaufmann's decided they wanted their new vacation home designed by Wright. Less than a year after Wright's first visit to the proposed home site he presented Edgar Kaufmann with the first drawings of his vision for their home. Though not the original choice for the home Kaufmann agreed with Wright when told of his plans to build the home over the waterfall and not at it's base. The original estimate for the cost of the home,and it's furnishings' was $35,000. The actual cost of the main house was $75,000. The addition of the servants quarter's,guest house,and garage was $50,000. Fallingwater is not considered to be an enormous home. The enclosed square footage is 2885,with an additional 2445 square feet in terrace space.
Three years after Wright's first visit to Bear Run the home was completed. Construction was overseen by two apprentices from Taliesin, Edgar Tafel and Bob Mosher.
Wright believed that buildings should appear as though it naturally belonged there. “It is the nature of any organic building to grow from its site,come out of the ground into the light.”1 Wright saw it as a personal