Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater Reconsidered

Johnson 1

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater Reconsidered Chandler Millard Johnson

Southwestern University Art History Capstone Seminar Dr. Allison Miller Fall 2014

A special thanks to Dean Gaffney, the Friends of the Fine Arts at Southwestern University, and my Mother for allowing me to visit Fallingwater. additional thanks to Dr. Howe and Dr. Miller for never giving up on me... somehow.

Johnson 2 The Kaufman Residence, more commonly referred to as "Fallingwater" (Fig.1), was designed by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 and its construction took place between 1936 and 1938. Seated atop a seventeen-foot waterfall in rural Southern Pennsylvania, Fallingwater has been controversial since its inception. In fact, even its inception is controversial as lore has it, the entirety of the home was designed in the two hours it took for the patron, Edgar Kaufman Sr., to drive the 140 miles from Pittsburg to Chicago. “People always think that architects are going to go to the hilltop and put their work on top. The whole idea of inverting the expected to engage the waterfall was the brilliance of [Fallingwater... and] building the way he did, was the kind of an outrageous [action] that showed that the unexpected idea is actually stronger than any other concept,” a quote by architect Anthony Walker, former student of the Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture1. The house was created for the wealthy Kaufman family, which owned Kaufman's Department Store in downtown Pittsburgh, and was to serve as a replacement for the dilapidated cottage which existed previously on the site. The structure and form of Fallingwater is intriguing to many and yet fully understood by few. In fact, a pilgrimage to Fallingwater is fairly customary for aspiring East-coast architects and as a student at Southwestern University, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to travel to Fallingwater and experience the residence first-hand. In doing so, I was able to broaden my understanding of the site and gather a sense of the immutable qualities such as scale, directionality and flow, and sensory nature which exist at Fallingwater. As a result, this paper is

Angie Schmitt, “What Fallingwater Means to You,” January 11, 2014, http://www.aia.org/practicing/AIAB091073.

Pronounced "tal-E-essen", the Taliesin Fellowship was and remains today an unpaid internship program which Wright conceived to broaden his reach in America. Edgar Kaufmann Jr., the son of Fallingwater's patron Edgar Kaufman Sr. was a notable scholar of the Taliesin school along with Walker (quoted).

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Johnson 3 an investigation into the key aspects "formal qualities" of Fallingwater as it fits within an art and architecturally historical context. After giving an informative background in to the status of Frank Lloyd Wrights career and it's relation to the state of architectural theory in the early 20th century, and then by considering Fallingwater's formal qualities with the formal qualities of styles and movements with which it is most commonly associated, I will codify Fallingwater as it fits within those styles and finally provide my own explanation for Wrights design decisions using both history and art history as my guide.

Wright and his Career Early in his life Frank Lloyd Wright is recognized by his mother as being particularly stricken with architecture and she purchases for him a set of Frobel kindergarten blocks at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia so that he may begin designing structures.2 Having lived in a rural community for the entirety of his youth, Wright takes it upon himself at age 15 to attend the University of Wisconsin and enroll in the engineering school. Unhappy with the school, Wright decides to learn architecture and drafting by apprenticing with the prominent engineering and design firm Adler and Sullivan in Chicago, and quickly becomes Louis Sullivan's chief assistant. In 1892, despite working for Sullivan, Wright begins bootlegging houses in order to pay his debts. Sullivan would soon find out and the two would go their separate ways.

2

Designed by Friedrich Frรถbel in the 1830s as a way to teach children the elements of geometric from, mathematics and creative design, Froebel Blocks as referenced throughout Wrights career and he attests to their significant influence on his work.

Johnson 4 In 1889, Wright would marry Catherine Tobin, a successful Chicago businessman's daughter, providing him with six children and arguably some much needed culture and status. By 1908, and at the age of forty-one, Wright would attain legitimate regional success and as an independent architect would design and build over one-hundred Prairie Style residences in Illinois and the Midwest before commencing in a new unusual social life. In 1910 Wright would begin shocking Midwesterners by flaunting married women in his car and wearing expensive clothes, eccentricities quite uncommon for the region. In 1914, Wright would leave Catherine to take up residence with his mistress Mamah Cheney, the wife of a client, and move to Europe. I suggest Wright may have done this as a result of his own growing malaise toward his architectural commissions and as an escape from American provinciality. Wrights hard luck would began in 1918 when his Mamah was brutally axe murdered by his servant at his home in Phoenix while he was on business in Chicago. His home was simultaneously burned down. In 1925 his house in Arizona caught fire once more, and this was the impetus for his "ten-year slump". During this time, Wright can be viewed as viewed as reinventing himself as an architect.

Fig.2, a graph which plots Wrights number of annual commissions over his career, Wrights career can be read as being subdivided into two phases, and separated by a nearly decade-long hiatus of residential commissions between 1925 and 1935, which up to that point were Wrights bread-and-butter so to speak. In Fig.2, a trend-line is overlaid, generated as a function of the average number of commissions Wright receives using ten years as the period.

This line is extremely revealing as it graphically depicts Fallingwater (indicated by the arrow) as coming at the end of Wrights worst decade. Whether the result of social ramifications due to his eccentric lifestyle or a genuine public lack of interest in his work, Wright receives dwindling

Johnson 5 support up to this point and between 1925 and 1935 would only receive two relatively small residential commissions. This would result in Wrights founding the Taliesin Fellowship as a means by which to monetize his fame and name, ultimately, as referenced before, the route by which Wright is introduced to the Kaufmanns.

I will discuss this more later, though essentially Fallingwater's temporal location is significant as it not only indicates the culmination of a lull in Wrights first career but also the revitalization of Wrights second.

Fallingwater, It's Site and It's Problem Fallingwater, it's site and its history are unique. First, Fallingwater's site is isolated.

Edgar Tafel, an associate architect under Wright and the second site superintendant describes in his manuscript, "living alone on the remote site sixty miles south of Pittsburgh was deadly [boring], especially after the workers left in the afternoon.... [The Kaufmanns] once offered to send down a piano to fill the idle hours."3. Being so secluded, the site is entirely distinguished by its natural qualities and uninfluenced my manmade devices such as buildings, highways and road noise. The region surrounding the site is comprised of dense woodlands and periodic rocky outcroppings. Waterfalls give the site its own energy and late in life Wright recants his instant captivation with the location. He writes of his first trip to Bear Run in December, 1934, "the visit to the waterfall in the woods stays with me and a domicile has taken vague shape in my mind to

3

Edgar Tafel, Apprentice to genius: years with Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979: 174.

Johnson 6 the music of the stream."4. Wrights impression of the site would later dictate the placement and orientation of the home. The ultimate location of Fallingwater is at the "Y" shaped convergence of a natural stream and the long access road. The home functions as a link between these two linear elements. The back of the home is a wall which creates a tall driving passage parallel to the steep natural grade of the hill. The iconic front of Fallingwater faces perpendicular to the hillside as well as the converging stream which it cantilevers over5. Much as the rear wall of the house creates a vertical channel so does the underside of the cantilever which creates a similar yet horizontal channel above the stream (Fig.3). Specific to this site is the waterfall which while natural exudes an organic temporality due to its obvious erosion and the transient passage of water above. At the base of the falls rest two large broken horizontal slabs of rock. Previously existing at the top of the waterfall, these slabs have weathered and broken off over time, ultimately falling and becoming the "hearth slabs" at the base of the falls which they remain today. The horizontal lines of these broken slabs reflect the horizontal jutting lines of the waterfalls ledge to which they were once affixed. Edgar Kaufmann Jr., the son of the patron Edgar Kaufman, and apprentice to Wright himself recants, Wright seemed to have been particularly fetched by the enormous rock ledges that had broken off and allowed the water to fall and were such a visual feature of what remained--you not only saw the water falling over them, you also saw the ledging

4

Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, in Letters to Clients (Fresno: Press at California State University, 1986), 82.

5 Joseph, “Built Space.� (M.S., M.I.T., 1984).

Johnson 7 extending, you saw the difference in vegetation at the bottom and vegetation on the upper level6.

The site's remote location is crucial in that it gives Wright a natural tabula rasa with which he may conceive and derive almost limitless structural combinations. Unaffected by surrounding structures, in Fallingwater, Wright is able to respond solely to nature. Furthermore, Wright recognizes the Kaufmanns as people with means and patrons of the arts and he believes as such are more likely to be liberal with the home's scale, design and costs.7 Because of its unique nature, Fallingwater becomes an instant icon. Architectural scholar Daniel Mauzy Martin perfectly summarizes the existing classification of Fallingwater which has been neither questioned nor altered since this 1982 text: Soon after the house was built it became extremely popular... and was published by every major architectural magazine and every architectural historian and critic had something to say about it. Before long, every architectural textbook contained a photograph of it taken from a vantage point beneath the waterfall. (Fig.4) The house called 'Fallingwater', became a textbook example of the new modern architecture, and architects young and old were influenced by its masterful handling of materials. [They were] intrigued by its cantilevered terraces which seemed to reach out in every direction... but also puzzled that all the concrete and glass somehow seemed to belong.8

6

Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, in Letters to Clients (Fresno: Press at California State University, 1986), 83.

7 Within Fallingwater today are two original paintings by Picasso, an original drawing by Diego Rivera, and countless Japanese Woodblock prints including a Hokusai which Wright liquidated to the Kaufmanns later in his life.

8 Daniel Martin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater; Lessons in Harmony and Contrast (Atlanta: Georgia Institute of Technology, 1982).

Johnson 8 All this is true and since its construction people have been fascinated with Fallingwater. In the field of architecture there remains a truly unique appreciation for it, in fact, I have found that many architects or even historians become rather defensive at the suggestion that Fallingwater may not be properly classified or even fully understood. This being said, in order to differentiate the sometimes nebulous movements of art and particularly architecture, it is necessary for critics, artist and historians alike to construct reasoned partitions "movements" within which to place compelling congruent structures despite the fluid nature of human culture.

So what am I doing then? Well, too often the literature on Fallingwater is convoluted by historians who would much rather write praise articles than real critical analysis. Whether subconscious or not, Fallingwater being cited by Time Magazine as Wrights "most beautiful job" or AIA, the American Institute of Architects, deeming it "the best all-time work of American architecture" , young architects are generally taught that Fallingwater is "good" architecture and do the studies and treat is as such, though I am far less concerned with whether Fallingwater is good, or bad or ugly, but rather, what it is that Wright is actively engaging with in his design.

As a result, my research is an investigation into the key aspects or "formal qualities" of Fallingwater as it fits within an art and architecturally historical context. I believe that a more clinical exploration of these aspects will better reveal how Fallingwater fits within Modernism rather than as Modernism. Certainly a case can be made for Fallingwater to fall under the umbrella classification of "Modernism", though Modernism being an extremely broad and relatively fluid classification, I argue in a manner contrary to common architectural prescription.

Fallingwater the Prairie House

Johnson 9 In 2011, David Netto, a Los Angeles based designer and architectural writer said, "Falingwater is Modern in the sense that it's from is untraditional, but not Modern in terms of not belonging to a school of architecture like that propagated by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius."9 The style Netto is referring to of course is the International Style, and I will skip this for now but come back to it later on. Netto says that Fallingwater's form is "untraditional", and at first glance one could certainly come to that conclusion as the home contains two rather significant distractions: one, the house is on top of a waterfall; and two, the house consists of many "apparently floating" slabs. While these two elements do seemingly put the home in the "untraditional" category, the progressive nature of Wrights commissions as well as some of Fallingwater's formal qualities which are consistent with major tenets of the Prairie style suggest otherwise.

If we were to add to Fig.2 a line which represents the number of Wrights prairie style homes as a percentage of wrights house commissions between 1900 and 1925, we would see a large trend toward the majority, from Wrights early years such as in 1901 where of his 10 house commissions, only five are Prairie Style, to 1917 where he only receives 4 commission yet all four of which are in the Prairie School Style. From this, it would appear that Wright is working very hard to solidify the Prairie School as his style.

Historically, the Prairie Style is associated with Wrights early years and is characterized by a few key elements which unsurprisingly can be found in Fallingwater as well as other post 1935 Wright houses. Typically, Prairie style houses contain repetitious horizontal lines

David Netto, “What's So Great About Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater?�, May 7, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703922804576301670230267088?mg=reno64wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052748703922804576301670230267088.ht ml.

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Johnson 10 throughout the structure which tie the residence in with the wide expanses of the Midwestern landscape, a low hipped roof which tends to cantilever outward and an "open plan". Prairie style homes are commonly associated with the American Arts and Crafts movement and this can be evidenced by the use of stained glass and handmade furniture throughout. Wrights Fredrick C. Robie House, Chicago Il, 1909 (Fig.5) and Arthur B. Heurtley House, Oak Park, Il, 1902 (Fig.5), are two of Wrights most recognizable and undeniable examples of this aesthetic and embody the principles of Prairie Style in their low hipped roofs, extremely long window bands and concrete moldings. In particular Wright calls for custom bricking for both houses. In the Robie House bricks are all the same color though incredibly elongated. The mortar which locks the bricks in place is designated as thicker on the top and bottom and thinner on the sides as to create a higher sense of horizontal line. As with the Robie House, the Heurtley House too makes use of an elongated brick, though it creates horizontal lines through brick elongation and color alternating variable brick colors rather than mortar thickness. Like with the Robie House and the Heurtley House, Fallingwater makes use of a unique fenestration system designed by Wright. Stone which is quarried locally, only eighty yards from the plat, is alternated thick and thin effectively creating bands or vein-like horizontal stones which stripe the length of the house. Wright instructs that the stone "be the longest possible without breaking", due to the fact that the stones are alternately layered yet another horizontal motif is created. (Fig.6) Wrights use of indigenous stone reduces the cost of hauling in some other stone, but more importantly is in keeping with the prairie style hand-made aesthetic. As one experiences the interior of the home, hand cut stone overwhelms through color and texture. Whether in the floors which seem to be created through mosaic, or in the piled rock walls, the hand-craftsmanship of

Johnson 11 the space is undeniable, and Wrights exhibitionism is truly revealed by the protrusion of a natural stone boulder through the living room which functions as the homes hearth.(Fig.7) From the South Elevation, Fallingwater's cantilevered balconies make a strong case for horizontality as they appear to be the same proportions as the bricks which make up the Robie house, and create visually repetitive horizontal masses. (Fig.6) With each horizontal surface articulated at even vertical intervals which provide comforting upward rhythm and yet protruding and colliding against the stone piers with both asymmetry and horizontal compositional balance, it is clear that their relationship has been carefully calculated by Wright the artist. Fallingwater follows a horizontal "play" with form as evidenced by its balconies.10 A basic play which is astonishingly similar to Wrights contemporary, Dutch modernist painter Piet Mondrian of whom we will address shortly. Finally the vertical stone stacks which contrast the balconies are compositionally balanced not only by the directionality of their forms but by their change in color and texture.

Fallingwater's plan too is open like that of the Robie and Heurtley Houses, characterized by its inclusion of the formal dining room, multifunctional living room and informal living room being conglomerated in to a singular wall-less space.

My claim as it pertains to Fallingwater fitting within the Prairie Style is that it at least through these crucial elements, horizontality, an open plan, the handmade aesthetic and use of local materials it does fit within a Prairie Style mantra, though it clearly lacks one key element, that being the long horizontal hipped roof. This one characteristic ultimately changes the whole look of the house and reminds the viewer that there is more going on than simple prairie style.

10

Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York: Horizon Press, 1977).

Johnson 12 Next let us look at the International style which was referred to earlier. During Wrights decade hiatus, a new movement in architecture was occurring within modernism called the International Style.

FĂŞted architectural critic Vincent Scully, calls Fallingwater "Modernism", citing "the essentially rectangular steel frame construction" and "slabs balanced on piers below ", and as a "quintessentially International style Modern house". Scully goes so far as to compare Fallingwater to Modernist painting, and refers to Wrights contemporary, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.11 Spawned by Le Corbusier and developed by Philip Johnson during the 1932 Museum of Modern Art International Exhibition, the International Style is characterized as modern linear and rectilinear forms, light and airy planar surfaces stripped of ornamentation, open plan interiors like those of the Prairie Style , a visually almost weightless quality engendered by the use of cantilever construction, and Glass and steel, in combination with reinforced concrete.12 Additionally, the use of ground level "Piloti" which elevate the building from the earth and allow for underside access, long horizontal window bands and roof access are common themes in International Style houses.

In the same way that the Robie and Heurtley houses are significant models for the themes of Prairie Style, Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye ,1931, embodies the characteristics that make a structure International style. Its whitewashed decoration-free rectangular shell creates incredibly high contrast with its surroundings and its long window band creates one continuous 11

Vincent Scully, in Frank Lloyd Wright, 8th ed. (New York: George Braziller, 1979), 27.

12

William J Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900, 3rd ed. (London: Phaidon, 1996).

Johnson 13 line. Furthermore, it make use of elevated on stilt-like "Piloti" which allows for access to the underside for parking and shelter. Finally, the roof has open access for the full utilization of space.

Upon comparison with Fallingwater, one would simply assume based on these characteristics, that what Wright is doing is copying this International style, though this is simply not the case. Let's approach it like this: Scully compares Wrights design to a painting by Mondrian. Mondrian over his career refines his painting style and through numerous iterative abstractions divulges the "line paintings" which we so commonly associate him with today.

(Fig.8) In Fig.8, we see a chronological progression of Mondrian's tree as it ventures from essentially representation or impressionism in to pure abstraction of characteristics like line, shape, space, texture and color. Now, I must qualify this argument by noting that there is of course more than a simple abstraction taking place and that Mondrian is being influenced by a huge number of factors and forces the least of which is likely architecture. But at least for the sake of this argument, Mondrian's abstraction analogy makes for a good demonstrative aid in facilitating the understanding of how Wrights "abstraction" can be derivative from naturalism.

Like with Mondrian, Wright's "painting", Fallingwater, is an iterative abstraction of the naturalistic elements of the sight. (Fig. 9) In this way it is characteristically different from Villa Savoy as it's germ is the site where as the Villa Savoy's germ is "the machine for living" also called the Modernist "machine aesthetic" which Phillip Johnson champions. For example The Villa Savoy incorporates materials which have absolutely no visual association with the site such as stark white paint and hard lined edges despite being located in a field. This is also inversely

Johnson 14 true with color and shape as seen in Fallingwater as it is a clear example of a painstaking effort

by Wright to reflect the natural environment.

This considered, for Wright, these balconies are the medium through which he is expressing line and form. Where Mondrian would use oils, Wright is using concrete, rebar and paint. As such, it is clear that his desire to express this form precedes his desire to provide a reasonably sized balcony due to the fact that of the 5,330 square feet which comprise the main house, nearly half, 2,445 square feet, consist of uncovered balconies.13 I have indicated them in Fig.10 in fuchsia. If this seems absurd, it is. To put it in perspective, in 1937 when Fallingwater was completed, it cost the Kaufmanns roughly 117 thousand dollars. After adjusting for inflation, in 2014 the cost of Fallingwater would be 1.5 million. It would not seem entirely wise to construct such large element-vulnerable structures if not for some other reason than pure function. According to this, this is not the traditional modernist Wright of "human" or "domicilescale" which he would like us to believe, but rather the exhibitionist artist Wright exuding a liberal painterly aesthetic resulting in extraordinarily oversized terraces. One explanation for this might be the extent to which Wright is moved by the site and wishes to reflect or even abstract the surrounding nature as I stated earlier. Or could Wright possibly some deeper ulterior motive?

Consequently, Fallingwater, despite embodying so many international style characteristics simply cannot be classified as International style due to its naturalistically derivative form and, excessive disproportionate, terraces, which are not "machine-aestheticModernism" and do not fit in with Wrights "human or domicile scale" as he calls it.

Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, “Fallingwater Facts,� Fallingwater.com, January 1, 2014, http://www.fallingwater.org/38/fallingwater-facts.

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Johnson 15 But then again, as with the Prairie style, something must be said about the International styles influence on Fallingwater as well.+ Next, Another Writer, Franklin Toker suggests the houses "naturalism", that is the notion that the house is a continuation of the original site, propagates from a different source, not prairie style or international style but rather Wrights kind of idyllic desire for the site. This is in all actuality a very common notion as Wright somewhat preached a message of environmentalism.

Toker quotes Wright as saying to Kaufmann Sr. "I want you to live with the waterfall, not just look at it".14 He references "the rushing water which permeates the home yet never overwhelms and a boulder which protrudes just through the living room."

Another one of Wrights mentees, a Taliesin Fellow and Wrights architectural superintendant on the site, Edgar Taffell calls it "genius through organic growth along with nature".15 As before, upon first inspection It would at first be very easy to take these notions for granted as the truth, and certainly their credibility is significant, so naturally then we should examine some of the formal devices these men are referencing.

As for the water which "permeates", the site it does so in two ways. The first way, and almost certainly the way in which Wright intended the water to permeate was through sound. Ideally the waterfall below would create a pleasant sensory atmosphere as long as the river ran. On the other hand, one of Fallingwater's curatorial staff assured me that water "permeates " Fallingwater in

14

Franklin Toker, Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E.J. Kaufman, and America's Most Extraordinary House (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, April 19, 2005).

15 Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, in Letters to Clients (Fresno: Press at California State University, 1986), 81.

Johnson 16 another way. During periods of heavy rain, water would and still does seep through the houses roof and foundation. This seepage occurred so much that before he left, Wright had channels cut at the stone entry of the home to direct the water toward drains.

Evidently, Wright assured the Kaufmanns that this was all part of "living with the waterfall", and regardless of the folklore, water running though the home is more likely a result of Wrights denial of a proper engineer during construction at the sight.16 The next of Wrights organic decisions is scale, in his memoirs he says, "Taking a human being for my scale, I brought the whole house down in height to fit a normal one--ergo, 5' 8½" tall. This is my own height and i believe in no other scale than the human being. It has been said that were I three inches taller than 5' 8½" all my houses would have been quite different in proportion. Probably."17 This photograph is take of Kaufman Sr. standing next to Wright on the site. In the image, Wright is standing two full-sized steps above Kaufmann Sr. and does not surpass him in height.

Though photographs are hardly quantifiable measures, it is not difficult to tell that Kaufmann Sr. is substantially taller than Wright. Would it not then seem odd then for Wright to utilize his own body size rather than Kaufmann Sr.'s as the inherent scale for the design? In Fig.11, I have taken a photograph at the front entry of Fallingwater. Using my own height of 6'1" as the rule, It would seem fair to estimate the doorway to be near 6". As the image suggests, the scale is less than accommodating, especially for a taller person such as Kaufmann Sr..

16 17

Ibid.

Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York: Horizon Press, 1977).

Johnson 17 Before the next element is examined I must point out a theme of Wrights dominance or control that is emerging. Despite an unclear motive, It would appear as if even in the smallest details must be heavy-handedly forced rather than derived as I previously theorized.

Next let us look in to Fallingwater's iconic balconies again and particularly as they are shaped by line as they are undoubtedly the most controversial and naturally one of the more interesting aspects of Fallingwater, as Wright autocratically dictates every detail. From the exterior, line dominates the composition. The five thick sweeping horizontal bars of cantilevered balconies are bold and immediately draw the viewers eye laterally, the common theme in Wright's Prairie Style designs and no exception in Fallingwater. Upon further inspection, horizontal overhangs, though of considerably less thickness, serve to functionally provide shade and shelter as enclosures and compositionally reflect and balance the much bolder balcony lines, this being more of an International Style notion. Providing backing to these balcony lines is the inset stone exterior wall of the home. Lines contained in this wall are unique due to the nature of the flagstone material used in their construction. From a distance, the deliberately designed building edges and piers create long controlled perpendicular and vertical contrasting lines providing both crucial structural support, points of division within the structure, and shadow casting on the exterior. And yet another example of line explicitly dictated by Wright can be found. Compositionally the silhouette of thin window casings appear as vertical stilts between floors. While these lines are certainly repetitious, they more importantly serve an ironic function as "not-structure" as their thinness is a symbol for the absence of thickness. Within a composition of such bold horizontal and vertical slabs, thin and sparse vertical silhouettes are so

Johnson 18 highly contrasted that they are instantly recognized by the viewer as non-structural and in turn highlight the weighty suspension of cantilevered balconies.

Throughout his career, Wright has a stirring relationship with structures and engineers.

As an apprentice, Wright worked for seven years for Alder and Sullivan and after leaving the firm he considered himself as an "engineer architect", or at least one who "fully understood the limits of his materials."18 Upon realizing that Kaufmann Sr. had hired a structural engineer on the side to inspect Wrights plans for the cantilevers, Wright was livid. Wright writes to his superintendant Tafell, "DROP WORK AND COME BACK IMMEDIATELY, WE ARE THROUGH UNTIL KAUFMANN AND I ARRIVE AT SOME BASIS OF MUTUAL RESPECT..."19 Clearly, Wright's language is evidence that he views Kaufmanns actions of hiring an engineer simply to "double-check his figures on the terraces" as an attack on his character, and is linking his skill as an architect to his own personal ethical code. In his memoirs Wright says "FOR AN ARCHITECT TO TAKE A RISK WOULD BE A CRIMINAL ACT AGAINST MANKIND!"20 From this, is apparent that Wright sees no problem with the structure that he has designed. Wright then references how his use or reinforced concrete cantilevered slab construction was amply proven in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. (Fig.12) , which did survive a 7.1 magnitude earthquake with only "light damage" upon inspection by the national structural inspection committee in Japan.

18

Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, in Letters to Clients (Fresno: Press at California State University, 1986), 69.

19 Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, in Letters to Clients (Fresno: Press at California State University, 1986), 84.

20 Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York: Horizon Press, 1977).

Johnson 19 The principle is deemed an "Inverted 'T'" by Wright and consists of hierarchical concrete and steel rebar beam and joist system which concentrates steel rebar in extreme tension at the top and dense concrete in extreme compression at the bottom. Ideally, if the system is poured in its formwork in one period, the structure will become a static solid, or in other words, all one piece.

Ultimately Kaufmann would be forced to remove the contract structural engineer from the sight but, unbeknownst to Wright, he would add more rebar than is called for in Wrights plans.

All of these instances, the permeating water, wrights "human-like" scale, and these balconies are certainly examples of bridges which link the home to nature, and Wright and many of his disciple-like Taliesin scholars would propose, but more than that, they are examples of Wright exerting his own will over the house and its patrons in an almost authoritarian mode.

From this perspective, it becomes more likely that Wright is using Nature as a front for his heavy-handedness or rather than the true principle of his design.

Prior to Fallingwater, Wright persuades Kaufmann to sponsor his Broadacre City project, which is Wrights design for a new type of utopian "rural urbanism" or plutonic suburbanism. In 1936, suburbanism as we know it today does not exist, and the form which Wright promotes never will, though Kaufmann is particularly moved by Wrights beliefs possibly as much as his designs.

As mentioned earlier, at that point in 1935, Wright had only received two commissions in 5 years, both were for relatively small residences. Wrights real desperation is evidenced in his letter to Kaufmann Sr. during the culmination of the Fallingwater build. When referencing the money Kaufmann has already paid to him he says,

Johnson 20 "IT ISN'T ENOUGH E.J. AND I AM ASKING NOT FOR JUSTICE BUT MERCY. SO FAR YOU HAVE PAID ME ALL THAT I'VE ASKED BUT I HAVEN'T ASKED ENOUGH. YOU HAVE NO IDEAH HOW MUCH OF OUR RESOURCES WENT IN TO YOUR WORK. IF I HAD MORE I WOULD HAVE GLADLY GIVEN YOU THE TOP- I AM GIVING IT HERE RIGHT NOW. I THINK YOU BELIEVE THAT..."

From his desperation, Wright's extreme control, his defensiveness, his imposition of technology, and scale and Nature, the paints the portrait of an portentous and yet brilliant architect who's fame is slowly slipping. It is apparent that in Fallingwater, Wright is making a gamble. First, he envisions, and is using Fallingwater as a catalyst to bring him back in to architectural relevancy. Second, he recognizes the Kaufmanns as patrons who can both afford such an extravagant home and provide an ideal site. Then, Wright not only invests himself physically and fiscally but he also invests the best elements of every style, technology, innovation and design that he has, indicative of his genuine concern. This would result in Fallingwater being the kind of "melting-pot" or piecemeal Modernism it is, and why no singular classification, whether Prairie School or International Style, or Writes idealistic naturalism or otherwise entirely describes Fallingwater's form.

Taking this into account, I surmise that Fallingwater is an abstraction of the site, which borrows formal elements from both Wright's experience with the Prairie School and the newfangled International Style, and with nature as its theme, is an exhibition of Wrights near limitless capacities and an architect. As an exhibition, Fallingwater serves as a stepping stone for

Johnson 21 Wright as within the same year, Wright would receive a large commission for the S.C. Johnson Wax Company Headquarters and the following year an even larger commission for the master plan and chapel of Florida Southern College. I believe that this was Wrights plan for Fallingwater all along as evidenced by his domineering control of the design and construction methods and the lore which he surrounds himself.

I have acted with honor and integrity in producing this work and am unaware of anyone who has not.

__________________________________

Johnson 22

Fig.1 Wright-house.com, Fallingwater: View 1 from path near the lookout (from southwest)

Fig.2 Scatter Plot, Wrights Commissions Annually over his Career, Fallingwater indicated. .

Johnson 23

Fig.3 Dyer, Highlighted Section, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984

Fig.4 Falingwater from the "vantage point"

Johnson 24

Fig.5 Robie House and plan; Heurtley House and plan;

Johnson 25

Fig.6 Fallingwater: South Elev. and Stone Fenestration Detail

Fig.7 "Living Room" Stone Floors and Walls, Handmade Aesthetic

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Fig.8 Figuration to Abstraction, Mondrian from 1909 to 1930 Top Row L to R: Mondrian, 1909 circa, The Red Tree, Oil on canvas, 27 3/8" x 39" Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.

Mondrian, 1912, The Grey Tree - De grijze boom, Oil on canvas 78.5 x 107.5 cm Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.

Mondrian, 1912 circa, Apple Tree in Flower - Bloeiende appelboom, Oil on canvas. 78 x 106 cm, Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands.

Mondrian, 1912-13, Composition No.X, oil on canvas, 65.5 x 75.7 cm Museum Folkang, Essen.jpg Bottom Row L to R: Mondrian, 1913, Composition nuber II, oil on canvas 88 x 115 cm, Rijksmuseum KrĂśller-MĂźller, Otterlo.

Mondrian, 1919 Composition, Light Color Planes with Grey Contours, Oil on canvas 49 x 49 cm Kunstmuseum Basel.

Mondrian, 1921 Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black-Compositie met rood, geel, blaw en swart, Oil on canvas 59.5 x 59.5 cm Gemeentemuseum, the Hague.

Mondrian, 1930, Composition II with Black Lines, Oil on canvas 50 x 51 cm Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum

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Fig.9 Figuration to Abstraction, Mondrian & Wright

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Fig. 10 Chandler Johnson, Fallingwater: Exposed Balconies Marked with Pink, Fall 2014, Trimble Sketchup screen capture.

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Fig.11 Kaufmann and Wright; Chandler Johnson, Selfie at the Main Entry, Fall 2014, Photograph

Fig.11 Imperial Hotel, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1923

Johnson 30 Works Cited Andrew, David. Louis Sullivan and the Polemics of Modern Architecture: The Present against the Past. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Conservency, Western Pennsylvania. “Fallingwater Facts.” Fallingwater.com, January 1, 2014. http://www.fallingwater.org/38/fallingwater-facts.

Corbusier, Le. Towards an Architecture. Paris: G. Cres and Co., 1924.

Curtis, William J. Modern Architecture since 1900. 3rd ed. London: Phaidon, 1996.

Duve, Thierry De., and Clement Greenberg. Clement Greenberg between the Lines Including a Debate with Clement Greenberg. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Joseph. “Built Space.” M.S., M.I.T., 1984.

Kahn, Louis. “Outline Report on Jersey Homesteads,” 1936. Kastner Collection P. 2 box 45.

Martin, Daniel. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater; Lessons in Harmony and Contrast. Atlanta: Georgia Institute of Technology, 1982.

Schmitt, Angie. “What Fallingwater Means to You,” January 11, 2014. http://www.aia.org/practicing/AIAB091073.

Scully, Vincent. “Modern Architecture.” College Art Journal 17, no. 2 (1958): 183.

———. In Frank Lloyd Wright, 8th ed., 27. New York: George Braziller, 1979.

Sullivan, Louis. The Autobiography of an Idea. New York: Dover Publications, 1956.

Sullivan, Lous. Democracy: A Man-Search. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1961.

Wasser, Elise Louise. Writing about Wright Edgar Kaufmann Jr.’s Analyses on Frank Lloyd Wright. Austin: University of Texas, 2010.

Wright, Frank Lloyd. An Autobiography. New York: Horizon Press, 1977.

Wright, Frank Lloyd, and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer. In Letters to Clients, 82. Fresno: Press at California State University, 1986.

———. In Letters to Clients, 83. Fresno: Press at California State University, 1986.