Mackenzie Angell (10199811) ~ Thursday 13 June ~ Helena Piha DAB200 MODERN ARCHITECTURE – PROJECT 02 ESSAY Organic architecture eMerged in post-war AMerica, following the Art Nouveau moveMent, introducing an adaptation of new materials and techniques including concrete, iron, glass and organics.1 Organic architecture is the design of life, nature and natural forms through the integration of biological forms and processes.2 Between 1890 and 1940, AMerican architect Frank Lloyd Wright, devoted hours to the innovative designs responsible for the radical reconstruction of cities. Fearful of the urban and social crises, Wright transformed the prograM for urban planning, rejecting gradual iMproveMents for the holistic revolution of the urban environment.3 While several architects have contributed to developing theories behind organic architecture practices, Wright disputed the rationalistic approach proposing “organic Must be understood as the unique, inseparable and integral”. Wright’s research and design were based on four fundaMental principles: site and massing; function; space and structure; and eleMents and materials.4 These principles, whilst established during post-war AMerica, have had a significant influence on architectural practices today, contributing to the ideals of sustainable design through integration without disruption. His most prominent design occurred in post-war AMerica (1935-1939), with the internationally recognised Fallingwater at Mill Run, Pennsylvania and achieved a draMatic integration for those principles of organic architecture.5 Mill Run is home to many streaMs Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater becaMe an icon for organic architecture. Bear Run, the streaM on which Fallingwater was designed and later built on, is obscure and unexceptional; a key reason Wright agreed to designing a home for Edgar J. Kaufmann.6 Despite its siMple rectangular plan, Wright designed Fallingwater with offset horizontal planes and projecting balconies in order to take advantage of the waterfall’s diagonal views. The house sits on the rock ledge perpendicular to the Bear Run streaM and included a series of parallel walls and piers to support the main volume of Kaufmann’s home.7 Wright’s first principle of organic architecture is the integration of the building mass with the tOpography of the landscape. Site and massing refer to the nature of the location and how the local tradition and natural materials surrounding its environment show unusual eleMents within the terrain.8 Fallingwater was conceived to be poised above and within the waterfalls of the hidden mountains, honouring the forest site by contesting gravity and rigidity between one another.9 An iMportant aspect for understanding the influence site and massing has on any particular build is the regulation and manageMent of topology and geOMetric relationships; the surrounding context of the build and how it will affect the external 1 Javier SenOsiain, Bio-Architecture, trans. Marguerite Black Sterling (OxfOrd: Elsevier, 2003), 102. 2 David PearsOn, New Organic Architecture: The Breaking Wave (Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2001), 8 3 Robert FishMan, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier (CaMbridge: MIT Press, 1977), 3-5 4 Senosiain, Bio-Architecture, 109 5 Bruce BrOOks Pfeiffer and Peter gOssel, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959: Building for Democracy (LOs Angeles: Taschen, 2004), 53 6 Donald HoffMann, Understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture (New YOrk: DOver Publications, 1995), 3 7 Alex LugO, “Project 0a1,” 2013 ARCH 1412, no. 4 (February 2013): 1 8 Martina Zbašnik-Senegačnik and Manja Kitek KuzMan, “InterpretatiOns Of Organic Architecture,” Scientific Papers 2, no. 48 (July 2014): 293 9 HoffMann, Understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture, 104 1 Mackenzie Angell (10199811) ~ Thursday 13 June ~ Helena Piha DAB200 MODERN ARCHITECTURE – PROJECT 02 ESSAY architectural form.10 While architecture has always influenced by geOMetry, the urban revolution helped ceMent the understanding of natural and biological geOMetries, defining new shapes in dynaMisM of growth and insert theM into architectural design.11 Bear Run was defiant to normality, refusing to defer the hill from the waterfall, iMposed a grand horizon along the vertical axes.12 Fallingwater was designed with several cantilevered balconies and terraces to accentuate the relationship between the occupants and the trees, foliage, flowers and water. The building heightens the natural surroundings, involving the site in the massing to overlook rocks and cascades. The accentuation and involveMent best describes integration without disruption as the buildings eleMents add value to the project while allowing the natural environment to be as Kaufmann described, “equalled the coordination, sympathetic expression of the great principle repose where forest and streaM and rock and all the eleMents of structure are cOMbined.”13 Bear Run is home to dense, dark grey and buff-coloured sandstones and eroded flawed joints in the rock until they splintered. The splinted parts fell, resting as enormous boulders causing Bear Run to break over the falls. Wright’s conception relied on waterfall being central to the house; the dark boulders facing the north determined how it was situated on the site, the sandstone ledges inspired the fractured layering of the house while the streaM offered the site’s character.14 Site and massing, whilst established during post-war AMerica, have had a significant influence on architectural practices today, contributing to the ideals of sustainable design through integration without disruption. Building mass integration with landscape topography helps form function and has evolved into environmentally conscious design with the help of Wright’s practice in sustainable design.15 Owing to the recent development of situated regionalisM, the way people interact with the natural environment and the subsequent built environment is what makes the place.16 By designing conteMporary structures that utilise the site and massing principle of organic architecture architects are able to design the built environment with careful consideration of integration without disruption, like that of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. The second principle of organic architecture identified by Frank Lloyd Wright is function. Modern architecture of the 1930s provided great power and appropriation to the term ‘functionalisM’ as an inspiring concept to describe the efficient readying of architectural space.17 Wright distinguishes in his principles for organic architecture that function is the essentialisation of an architectural prograM to provide refuge and prospect and is synonymous with functionalisM. Function gives an architectural structure its meaning and its justification.18 Dissociating from Louis Sullivan’s philosophy; “form follows function” as Wright realised through his work of organic architecture that form and function are the same.19 Originally, they wanted a year-round weekend home within the waterfall and Wright knew instantly when visiting Bear Run, “…the principles that shaped stone as it lies, or as it 10 Omer Akin and HodaMOustapha, “Strategic use Of representatiOn in architectural Massing,” Design Studies 25, no. 1 (January 2004): 31, Elsevier 11 Zbašnik-Senegačnik and Kuzman, “Interpretations Of Organic Architecture,” 294 – 295 12 HoffMann, Understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture, 108 13 Pfeiffer and gossel, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959: Building for Democracy, 53 14 Donald HoffMann, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: The House and Its History, page 15 Lisa DOMenica IulO, Christine gOrby, Ute POerschke, Loukas NickOlas Kalisperis and MalcOM WOOllen, “Environmentally conscious design – educating future architects,” International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 14, no. 4 (2013): 434-448, EMerald Insight Publishing LiMited 16 University Of OregOn, “HistOric Architecture: PeOple, Not Just a Building, Make fOr ‘Place’,” Science Daily, (DeceMber 2008): 1 17 Ute POescheke, Architectural Theory of Modernism: Relating Functions and Forms (CITY: ROutledge, 2016) 1-3 18 Poescheke, Architectural Theory of Modernism: Relating Functions and Forms, 20 19 Poescheke, Architectural Theory of Modernism: Relating Functions and Forms, 93 2 Mackenzie Angell (10199811) ~ Thursday 13 June ~ Helena Piha DAB200 MODERN ARCHITECTURE – PROJECT 02 ESSAY rises and reMains to be sculptured by winds and tide – there sleep forms and styles enough for all the ages…”20 UltiMately the function for Fallingwater becaMe the character of the environment; its meaning and justification to exist was eMbedded into the waterfall and its surroundings. Fallingwater and his work for Kaufmann helped to reinforce organic architecture and its future in AMerican life. During port-war AMerica, people were preoccupied with the chaotic nature of economics, aesthetics and morals; thus, AMerica was unable and unwilling to achieve organic form and function. Wright eMphasised “An architect should at least see life as organic form continually.”21 Function while cOMing from the site becOMes a key cOMponent as an iMMediate design response for the user as opposed to the sheer placeMent of a site. Fallingwater was indicative of a building that integrated into its site, however, becaMe known for its context in regard tO the form and function.22 Function has had a significant influence on architectural practices today, contributing to the ideals of sustainable design