FALLINGWATER Frank Lloyd Wright
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, RAPSON HALL Steven Holl
SEATTLE CITY HALL Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Bassetti
Mill Run, Pennsylvania 1939
Minneapolis, Minnesota 2002
Seattle, Washington 2005
As a result of the surrounding environment, the sound of nature continuously provoke the sense of solitude within the house. More importantly, the sounds lure the inhabitant away from the compressed interior and out to the release of the exterior. When the inhabitant follows the stairs to the platform near the water, the awareness of their senses build and interpret the same feeling of solitude and peace. Secondly, the power of the falls is always felt regardless if the inhabitant is inside or outside, because it is felt through sound rather than through vision - this notion encourages curiosity.
The staircase that related code with experience, made the inhabitant distinguish sensations in space and time by not only its structure but by the condition of sound. The thick concrete materials of the stair and the tower block excess noise and allows for the making of its own experience of sound. Holl once wrote, “we hear the music of architecture as we move through spaces� 44. It is the soul of the architecture that identify the sensation of hearing or is it the soul of the inhabitant recognizing the emptiness of noise? The wonder remains unclear but for very good reasons. The building stands in mute solitude, but perhaps it is the receptive inhabitant that silently perceives the solitude in the form of the space. This staircase is the most perfect condition of what is possible in design.
The man made stream from the interior of the building descends alone the path of the inhabitant, down to the terraces on the street level. These delicate sound of the streams are a relaxing contribution to the chaos of everyday life. They enliven the necessary want to climb the stairs and offer tranquility in the merging of architectural components in the city.
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