Fallingwater

the long version

Fallingwater is one of the most inventive houses of Frank Lloyd Wright's long career and one of the twentieth century's most celebrated icons. Marking a revival of Wright's reputation in the mid-1930s after years of critical neglect, the house was designed when Wright was approaching seventy, and shows him to be an architect of immense resourcefulness and daring. Placed above a waterfall in a deep ravine known as Bear Run, its horizontal cantilevered floors and terraces soar free of apparent support above the cascades and pools of the stream. Walls are avoided almost entirely, the sense of shelter provided by the overhangs and by screen-like windows detailed to enhance the building's vertical and horizontal rhythms. Within the house, the effects of dappled light, surrounding foliage and tumbling water exemplify Wright's attitudes towards integrating architecture and nature.