Frank LLoyd Wright II, Kaufmann family & Fallingwater

Fallingwater, built directly over the falls

Wiki

I visited Pittsburgh for the first time in 1994 and one of the great day-tours was to Fallingwater. This home was near Mill Run in Penn­syl­vania, designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) in 1935 and completed in 1937. The house was designed as a private res­id­ence for the Pittsburgh department store owner, Ed­gar Kauf­mann (1885-1955), his wife Lillian (1889-1952) and their son.

Edgar I commissioned Wright to design a weekend retreat on the fam­ily’s land near Pittsburgh. Kaufmann had been introduced to Wright by his son in 1934, when the lad partic­ip­ated in Wright’s Talies­in Train­ing Fellowship for arch­it­ects and artists. Wright was 67 at the meet­ing, with few commissions in the midst of the Great Depres­sion. His car­eer was nearing retirement, the early suc­cess of his Prairie style residences in the early 1900s having long declined.

Construction of Fallingwater finally began in 1936. Local craftsmen and labourers were hired, and mater­ials were directly exc­av­ated from the Kaufmanns’ land. Wright might have been nudging 70, but he still had a bold vision for architecture. Fallingwater would be a master­piece of Wright’s theor­ies on organic ar­chitecture, which sought to integrate humans, arch­itecture and nat­ure together so that each one would be improved by the rel­at­ion­ship. Wright believed that architecture must sit com­fortably within its natural landscape, rep­licate its forms and use its materials. So Fallingwater grew from the site’s rocky landscape. Its concrete ter­races floated directly above the waterfalls, drawing attention to the water. Their horiz­on­t­­al forms high­lighted the boulders below. Although the ter­r­aces app­eared to hover, they were anchored to the cent­ral stone chim­ney using cant­il­evers!

  

The windows blended into natural stonewalls and fireplace, 

and corners were made of glass for unobstructed views

Nalata

Hence the expansive terraces occupied half the building, while the interior spaces were small with low ceilings, creating a sheltered cave in the rugged landscape. The building drew nature inside its 3 floors: natural cliffs protruded from the central fire-place and the sound of rushing water was always pres­ent. The design focused on the central fireplace, and the home off­er­ed unique fea­tures like cu­stom­ised niches to disp­lay the Kaufmanns’ art works.

Fallingwater was main­ly complete in 1937, with the family soon occ­up­ying the residence. It gained more fame when Time Magazine feat­ur­ed Wright and the building plan on its Jan 1938 cover; the dar­ing cons­truction over a waterfall was instrumental in reviving Wright’s ar­ch­itecture career.

Wright added a guest house in sandstone quarried from the property, in 1939. Fallingwater had proved that Wright was an enduring visionary ready for the rest of his career. Some of his most high-profile commis­sions came after, including the Guggenheim Museum in N.Y. The Kaufmanns con­tinued to reside in Fallingwater.

Light and garden views stream into the loungeroom

INSIDEWRIGHT

Son Edgar Kaufmann II (1910-1989) attended the School for Arts & Crafts at the Austrian Museum of Applied Art in Vienna, in the late 1920s. Then he stud­ied painting for 3 years in Flor­ence. Af­t­er reading Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiog­raphy, young Edgar decided to become a resident apprentice in archit­ecture at Wright's Taliesin East School and Studio from 1933-4.

When he left Wright's Taliesin Fellowship in 1935, Edgar II joined the family business and became merchandise manager for home furn­ish­ings, and in 1938, worked for the Kaufmann Dept Stores. In 1940 Edgar wrote to Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art/MOMA, propos­ing the Or­g­anic Design in Home Furnishings Comp­etition, won by Charles Eam­es and Eero Saarinen.

He served with the Army Air Forces from 1942-6 in WW2. After, he became dir­ector of the Industrial Design Dept at M.O.M.A in NY. Ed­g­ar's greatest success during his time at MOMA was the Good Design Programme of 1950-5, in which the museum joined with the Mer­chandise Mart in Chicago, promoting design in household furniture. 

Fallingwater architect, Frank Lloyd Wright

MinnieMuse

After his father's death in 1955, Edgar II inherited Falling-water, using it as a mountain retreat. Act­ing on his fat­her’s wishes, Edgar entrusted the building and surrounding land to the West­ern Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1963. In 1964 Fal­l­ing­wat­er open­ed to the public as an architectural house museum, surrounded by 5,100 acres of nat­ur­al land called the Bear Run Nature Reserve. Fal­l­­ing­water was the only major Wright work to come into the public domain with its original furnishings and artwork intact. 

From 1963-86, Edgar II was Ass professor of Architecture and Art History at Col­um­bia Uni and wrote books on architecture and modern design. When he died in 1989, Edgar II’s ashes were scattered around Fall­ing­water by his partner since the 1950s, Paul Mayén. 21 pieces of the family’s art and sculpture coll­ect­ion were auc­tioned at Soth­eby's New York - works of Mon­d­rian, Léger, Klee, Picasso, Braque, Monet, Matisse, de Koon­ing, Calder, Duchamp and Miró. Finally Paul Mayén oversaw the building of Falling­wat­er’s pavilion from 1979-81, housing the café, gift store and visitor’s centre. 

In 2019 the residence was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, along with 7 other Lloyd Wright designs. In total 5+ million visitors have toured Fallingwater.