Analysis on Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater
The building that fascinates me all the time is Frank Lloyd Wright‘s Fallingwater, which has long been recognized as the milestone in the history of 20th-century Architecture.
Commissioned in 1935 during the Great Depression by Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner of the popular Kaufmann's Department Store in Pittsburgh, Fallingwater initially served as a vocation house for the Kaufmanns between 1937 and 1963. What I found interesting about this house is, although it’s a formal modernist structure designed by a professional architect, it responds to the surrounding environment in a similar way as the traditional vernacular architecture, suggesting an organic integration between humans and nature and a rediscovery …show more content…
While Ningbo Museum serves as a historical site that makes commentary about the neighboring villages’ past of destruction, Fallingwater aims to make people live intimately with nature and to make building grow organically from its site. Moreover, at Fallingwater, stones are stacked up in a rough, horizontal manner that resemble the native sandstone formations found in the region. Even the pale ocher color of the concrete indicates the earthen nature of the material (Waggoner 33). Furthermore, Fallingwater’s horizontal cantilevered floors and terraces extend free of any visible support above the waterfall. Walls are reduced to minimum to avoid any sense of physical barrier and to endow the house with dynamic movement and vitality. Overall, the horizontal light-colored reinforced concrete terraces contrast with the vertical rocky sandstone walls, creating an interesting comparison between the vertical/fixed/chunky and the horizontal/spread/flaky, implying the natural condition of a tree, with the horizontal reinforced concrete representing the tree trunk and root, and the vertical sandstone walls representing the branches and leaves. Such imitation organically makes the house appear to have rooted and grown from its site, rather than being artificially imposed on the land by destructive means …show more content…
Although nearly half of Fallingwater is constituted by exterior space, people never tend to feel any sense of insecurity or being overexposed to the natural environment without any protection. On the contrary, people feel much protected by the windows framed by red steel mullions. The use of the color red warms the interior and interestingly adds a slight industrial technical taste to the house. Comparing with the common use of large uninterrupted sheets of glass in modern skyscrapers which treats the material as if it were invisible, Wright’s intention to show the physical presence of the glass and its function as a sheltering protective membrane suggests a return to the fundamental architectural principle that has been indicated since the prehistorical eras in the primitive huts and caves --human occupation as a protective shelter that keep inhabits away from any outside danger. What I also found interesting is the use of flagstone as the material for interior floor. When the light comes in through the window and spreads all around, the flagstone floor tend to create a striking water-like effect, as if the interior ground is another stream belong to the outside waterfall. Such design not only adds a sense of continuity and flowability to the interior space in relation to the exterior space, but also magically
The building that fascinates me all the time is Frank Lloyd Wright‘s Fallingwater, which has long been recognized as the milestone in the history of 20th-century Architecture.
Commissioned in 1935 during the Great Depression by Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner of the popular Kaufmann's Department Store in Pittsburgh, Fallingwater initially served as a vocation house for the Kaufmanns between 1937 and 1963. What I found interesting about this house is, although it’s a formal modernist structure designed by a professional architect, it responds to the surrounding environment in a similar way as the traditional vernacular architecture, suggesting an organic integration between humans and nature and a rediscovery …show more content…
While Ningbo Museum serves as a historical site that makes commentary about the neighboring villages’ past of destruction, Fallingwater aims to make people live intimately with nature and to make building grow organically from its site. Moreover, at Fallingwater, stones are stacked up in a rough, horizontal manner that resemble the native sandstone formations found in the region. Even the pale ocher color of the concrete indicates the earthen nature of the material (Waggoner 33). Furthermore, Fallingwater’s horizontal cantilevered floors and terraces extend free of any visible support above the waterfall. Walls are reduced to minimum to avoid any sense of physical barrier and to endow the house with dynamic movement and vitality. Overall, the horizontal light-colored reinforced concrete terraces contrast with the vertical rocky sandstone walls, creating an interesting comparison between the vertical/fixed/chunky and the horizontal/spread/flaky, implying the natural condition of a tree, with the horizontal reinforced concrete representing the tree trunk and root, and the vertical sandstone walls representing the branches and leaves. Such imitation organically makes the house appear to have rooted and grown from its site, rather than being artificially imposed on the land by destructive means …show more content…
Although nearly half of Fallingwater is constituted by exterior space, people never tend to feel any sense of insecurity or being overexposed to the natural environment without any protection. On the contrary, people feel much protected by the windows framed by red steel mullions. The use of the color red warms the interior and interestingly adds a slight industrial technical taste to the house. Comparing with the common use of large uninterrupted sheets of glass in modern skyscrapers which treats the material as if it were invisible, Wright’s intention to show the physical presence of the glass and its function as a sheltering protective membrane suggests a return to the fundamental architectural principle that has been indicated since the prehistorical eras in the primitive huts and caves --human occupation as a protective shelter that keep inhabits away from any outside danger. What I also found interesting is the use of flagstone as the material for interior floor. When the light comes in through the window and spreads all around, the flagstone floor tend to create a striking water-like effect, as if the interior ground is another stream belong to the outside waterfall. Such design not only adds a sense of continuity and flowability to the interior space in relation to the exterior space, but also magically