Video transcript: Frank Lloyd Wright: Kaufmann House / Fallingwater (1936-9)

Fallingwater is perhaps Wright’s most iconic domestic commission. As such it seems to epitomise many of the broader architectural themes which ran through his work, and thought, up to this point in his career. The house takes the form of a complex array of interlocking horizontal planes and projecting terraces, each of which extends outwards from a common vertical ‘spine’. This architectonic tension between horizontal and vertical is given material and visual emphasis by means of Wright’s use of starkly contrasting construction materials as regards the central spine as against the horizontal terraces.

The central spine, or ‘chimney’, which serves both as the common armature supporting the horizontal terraces, and as and as the structural ‘anchor’ which connects the house as a whole to its surrounding terrain, is composed of roughly textured stone blocks, somewhat reminiscent visually of a dry-stone wall. This both emphasises the physical connection between the house as a unit and the rocky terrain upon which it sits, and also provides a visual metaphor which is appropriate given that this spine is the principal structural armature upon which the house as a whole depends. The roughly hewn stone blocks convey a powerful impression of strength and stability. They also evoke associations with the traditions of American rural domestic architecture. The central chimney-stack around which traditional rural houses were built would, of course, have been composed of just such a material.

The horizontal terraces, by contrast, seem to issue from a much more contemporary architectural vernacular. They are composed of smooth, monochrome concrete; and they exhibit a sleek, almost machine-like uniformity of profile and surface. If we think back to the Villa Savoye (which was designed and built a decade or so before the Fallingwater) we can perhaps begin to appreciate the sort of architectural antecedent from which the Fallingwater terraces are derived. These horizontal terraces, which project so vertiginously into the spaces which surround the building, speak of the architectural language of contemporary European Modernism. They evoke – albeit tacitly – the earlier architectural statements of European Modernists such as Le Corbusier.

Thus here we see Wright audaciously combining architectural and aesthetic elements and materials which derive from the American vernacular tradition with forms and materials which startlingly evoke the contemporary world of European Modernism. He does so, moreover, in a manner which is exquisitely integrated into the geographical and topographical context within which the house stands. It is as though the surrounding woodland, the rocks upon which the house stands, and even the waterfall which quite literally runs through and beneath the house (and from which it derives its popular name) are each fully integrated into Wright’s overall design.

Just as the Villa Savoye seemed expressly designed to sit with such serene elegance amidst the open lawns which compose its site, so the Kaufmann House is meticulously configured so as to maximise the sensory involvement of its inhabitants in the sights and sounds of the dramatic landscape upon which it perches with such structural audacity.