Living Room Stairway to Bear Run, Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA
Built in 1935-1939, this Modern house, an example of Organic Architecture, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the family of department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr. to serve as a weekend retreat. The house was a catalyst for the revitalization of Frank Lloyd Wright’s career, who was in his mid-60s at the time, along with two other commissions around the same time, the Johnson Wax Headquarters and the Jacobs House I, which were critically acclaimed and explored a bold new direction of organic architecture that was heavily inspired from their natural surroundings, and were streamlined, dropping most of the ornamental pretenses of his earlier work. The house was built for department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., his wife, Liliane Kaufmann, and their only son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., to serve as the family’s weekend retreat, with room to accommodate a small staff and guests alongside the family. The Kaufmann family became acquainted with the work of Wright through Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., who read Frank Lloyd Wright’s autobiography in 1934, and was so impressed that he decided to intern at the Taliesin Fellowship, where Edgar, Sr. and Liliane first met Wright while visiting Edgar, Jr. The family, at the time, resided in a traditional-style mansion in Fox Chapel, near Pittsburgh, and had a small rustic cabin overlooking the waterfall at the Fallingwater site. The cabins were falling into disrepair in the mid-1930s, which prompted the Kaufmann family to contact Wright to design a replacement structure. Wright visited and surveyed the area around Bear Run in 1934, but shelved the project while pursuing other work for the next few months, thinking through the design, before being surprised by a visit from Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr. in September 1935, which prompted Wright to quickly draw a concept for a house at Bear Run, producing the initial design drawings in two hours. Edgar, Sr., upon seeing the plans, was surprised to see the house soaring above the waterfall, as he had expected it to sit below the falls in order to view them from a distance, but Wright’s charisma convinced a skeptical Kaufmann to buy into the concept.
The house was designed by Wright with input from structural engineers Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters to feature large cantilevers, which allowed it to embrace the waterfall and topography below, while providing ample outdoor space and the desired number of bedrooms and living spaces within. A second wing was constructed above the main house, linked to it via a covered breezeway, which houses a carport, servants quarters, and a guest suite. The stone utilized in the house’s construction was quarried on the site, and it utilized reinforced concrete in its construction, a building technique with which Wright was inexperienced, but which the design would be impossible to implement without utilizing. Kaufmann was skeptical of Wright’s experience with the technique, as well as the cantilevered forms of the structure, and commissioned an engineering report, compiled by an engineering firm, which caused Wright to threaten to walk away from the incomplete project. Kaufmann relented in the face of Wright’s ultimatum, and had the documents buried. However, the contractor, feeling uneasy about the strength of Wright’s design, added extra reinforcement in secret, which was revealed during the building’s restoration. Other changes were made due to skepticism of the cantilevered design, but many of these were reversed, which proved the resiliency and strength of the design. The house came in far over budget, but despite these cost overruns and complications with the design, the Kaufmann family enjoyed it as a weekend retreat between 1937 and 1963. Liliane Kaufmann died in 1952, and Edgar Kaufmann, Sr. died in 1955, leaving the house to their son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., who continued to utilize the house as a weekend retreat, with his life partner, Paul Mayén, becoming a regular visitor to the house as well. In 1963, Edgar, Jr. donated the property to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, along with the surrounding property, which was converted into a nature reserve, and the house was opened for public tours.
The house features multiple reinforced concrete cantilevers, wrap-around windows facing the falls and Bear Run, open, transparent corners on the side of the building facing the creek, stone cladding on the more opaque portions of the facade, large terraces on the cantilevered portions of the building, open tread staircases inside and outside the building, red metal trim, a suspended concrete canopy over the breezeway connecting the guest wing and carport with the main house, a swimming pool on the terrace outside the guest wing, rocks embedded into the floors of the interior of the house, a staircase from the living room down to Bear Run below, and red concrete floors inside. A driveway, following Bear Run, crosses a bridge next to the main wing of the house before following a narrow corridor between the main wing and an adjacent stone outcropping, before turning and arriving at the upper wing, which originally housed a four-bay carport on the lower floor. The interior of the house is very open to the exterior, with low furnishings that allow for maximization of the views out of the windows, and is home to art that was collected by Liliane, books collected by Edgar, Jr. and Paul, and furnishings collected by Edgar, Sr. The house’s kitchen features yellow-painted metal cabinets and appliances, and chrome handles, the living room features a fireplace with a spherical beverage warmer that is designed to swing over to the fireplace from its storage location next to the fireplace and coffered ceilings, and horizontal bands of trim, and various portions of the house feature built-in desks, cabinets, wooden slat screens, and bookshelves, simple beds featuring wooden headboards and nightstands in the bedrooms, and bathrooms with cork tiles, sunken bathtubs, ceiling-mounted shower heads, and toilets with wall-embedded tanks. The upper wing of the house has a carport and guest suite on the lower floor, with servants quarters above, and the main house features a living room, dining room, kitchen, terraces and lounge on the first floor, a primary suite and secondary bedroom and bathroom with large terraces on the second floor, and a suite intended for Edgar, Jr. on the third floor, which was later partially converted into an office. The house is very broad in the direction parallel to Bear Run and has a living room that cantilevers over the creek, but it is very thin, being rather thin, with primary interior spaces featuring windows that look out onto Bear Run below. The house, despite its size appearing massive due to its spatial arrangement, has only a small interior square footage, but the space is efficiently designed to offer maximum utility to the occupants, and allow a close connection with nature.
The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It was designated as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, in 2019. A visitor center was constructed on the property in 1977-1979, designed by Paul Mayen. The most visible modification to the house since it was opened to the public were the enclosure of three carport bays to house a museum and presentation space for visitors. The house underwent major alterations to its structural systems in 1995-2002, involving analyzing the performance of the cantilevers over time since the house’s construction, as the bold cantilevered forms had insufficient reinforcement and had deflected substantially, nearing their failure points. Additional steel supports and post-tensioning in the form of steel cables were added to the building to support the cantilevers, which has halted the progression of the deflection of the structure, though it is monitored by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in order to detect any further movement of the structure. The house today sees over one-hundred thousand visitors annually, and is one of the most well-known works of Wright, as well as being one of the best-known houses in the United States.
Living Room Stairway to Bear Run, Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA
Built in 1935-1939, this Modern house, an example of Organic Architecture, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the family of department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr. to serve as a weekend retreat. The house was a catalyst for the revitalization of Frank Lloyd Wright’s career, who was in his mid-60s at the time, along with two other commissions around the same time, the Johnson Wax Headquarters and the Jacobs House I, which were critically acclaimed and explored a bold new direction of organic architecture that was heavily inspired from their natural surroundings, and were streamlined, dropping most of the ornamental pretenses of his earlier work. The house was built for department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., his wife, Liliane Kaufmann, and their only son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., to serve as the family’s weekend retreat, with room to accommodate a small staff and guests alongside the family. The Kaufmann family became acquainted with the work of Wright through Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., who read Frank Lloyd Wright’s autobiography in 1934, and was so impressed that he decided to intern at the Taliesin Fellowship, where Edgar, Sr. and Liliane first met Wright while visiting Edgar, Jr. The family, at the time, resided in a traditional-style mansion in Fox Chapel, near Pittsburgh, and had a small rustic cabin overlooking the waterfall at the Fallingwater site. The cabins were falling into disrepair in the mid-1930s, which prompted the Kaufmann family to contact Wright to design a replacement structure. Wright visited and surveyed the area around Bear Run in 1934, but shelved the project while pursuing other work for the next few months, thinking through the design, before being surprised by a visit from Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr. in September 1935, which prompted Wright to quickly draw a concept for a house at Bear Run, producing the initial design drawings in two hours. Edgar, Sr., upon seeing the plans, was surprised to see the house soaring above the waterfall, as he had expected it to sit below the falls in order to view them from a distance, but Wright’s charisma convinced a skeptical Kaufmann to buy into the concept.
The house was designed by Wright with input from structural engineers Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters to feature large cantilevers, which allowed it to embrace the waterfall and topography below, while providing ample outdoor space and the desired number of bedrooms and living spaces within. A second wing was constructed above the main house, linked to it via a covered breezeway, which houses a carport, servants quarters, and a guest suite. The stone utilized in the house’s construction was quarried on the site, and it utilized reinforced concrete in its construction, a building technique with which Wright was inexperienced, but which the design would be impossible to implement without utilizing. Kaufmann was skeptical of Wright’s experience with the technique, as well as the cantilevered forms of the structure, and commissioned an engineering report, compiled by an engineering firm, which caused Wright to threaten to walk away from the incomplete project. Kaufmann relented in the face of Wright’s ultimatum, and had the documents buried. However, the contractor, feeling uneasy about the strength of Wright’s design, added extra reinforcement in secret, which was revealed during the building’s restoration. Other changes were made due to skepticism of the cantilevered design, but many of these were reversed, which proved the resiliency and strength of the design. The house came in far over budget, but despite these cost overruns and complications with the design, the Kaufmann family enjoyed it as a weekend retreat between 1937 and 1963. Liliane Kaufmann died in 1952, and Edgar Kaufmann, Sr. died in 1955, leaving the house to their son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., who continued to utilize the house as a weekend retreat, with his life partner, Paul Mayén, becoming a regular visitor to the house as well. In 1963, Edgar, Jr. donated the property to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, along with the surrounding property, which was converted into a nature reserve, and the house was opened for public tours.
The house features multiple reinforced concrete cantilevers, wrap-around windows facing the falls and Bear Run, open, transparent corners on the side of the building facing the creek, stone cladding on the more opaque portions of the facade, large terraces on the cantilevered portions of the building, open tread staircases inside and outside the building, red metal trim, a suspended concrete canopy over the breezeway connecting the guest wing and carport with the main house, a swimming pool on the terrace outside the guest wing, rocks embedded into the floors of the interior of the house, a staircase from the living room down to Bear Run below, and red concrete floors inside. A driveway, following Bear Run, crosses a bridge next to the main wing of the house before following a narrow corridor between the main wing and an adjacent stone outcropping, before turning and arriving at the upper wing, which originally housed a four-bay carport on the lower floor. The interior of the house is very open to the exterior, with low furnishings that allow for maximization of the views out of the windows, and is home to art that was collected by Liliane, books collected by Edgar, Jr. and Paul, and furnishings collected by Edgar, Sr. The house’s kitchen features yellow-painted metal cabinets and appliances, and chrome handles, the living room features a fireplace with a spherical beverage warmer that is designed to swing over to the fireplace from its storage location next to the fireplace and coffered ceilings, and horizontal bands of trim, and various portions of the house feature built-in desks, cabinets, wooden slat screens, and bookshelves, simple beds featuring wooden headboards and nightstands in the bedrooms, and bathrooms with cork tiles, sunken bathtubs, ceiling-mounted shower heads, and toilets with wall-embedded tanks. The upper wing of the house has a carport and guest suite on the lower floor, with servants quarters above, and the main house features a living room, dining room, kitchen, terraces and lounge on the first floor, a primary suite and secondary bedroom and bathroom with large terraces on the second floor, and a suite intended for Edgar, Jr. on the third floor, which was later partially converted into an office. The house is very broad in the direction parallel to Bear Run and has a living room that cantilevers over the creek, but it is very thin, being rather thin, with primary interior spaces featuring windows that look out onto Bear Run below. The house, despite its size appearing massive due to its spatial arrangement, has only a small interior square footage, but the space is efficiently designed to offer maximum utility to the occupants, and allow a close connection with nature.
The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It was designated as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, in 2019. A visitor center was constructed on the property in 1977-1979, designed by Paul Mayen. The most visible modification to the house since it was opened to the public were the enclosure of three carport bays to house a museum and presentation space for visitors. The house underwent major alterations to its structural systems in 1995-2002, involving analyzing the performance of the cantilevers over time since the house’s construction, as the bold cantilevered forms had insufficient reinforcement and had deflected substantially, nearing their failure points. Additional steel supports and post-tensioning in the form of steel cables were added to the building to support the cantilevers, which has halted the progression of the deflection of the structure, though it is monitored by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in order to detect any further movement of the structure. The house today sees over one-hundred thousand visitors annually, and is one of the most well-known works of Wright, as well as being one of the best-known houses in the United States.