This is the house that Frank Lloyd Wright built over a waterfall at Bear Run, Fayette County, in rural southwestern Pennsylvannia for the family of Edgar J. Kaufmann, owner of Kaufmann’s department store, as a weekend home. It is regarded as one of the architect’s most beautiful masterpiece, building over the falls instead of under or across the river. It is listed among Smithsonian‘s Life List of 28 places “to visit before you die.” It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. In 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects named the house the “best all-time work of American architecture” and in 2007, it was ranked 29th on the list of America’s Favorite Architecture according to the American Institute of Architecture. the plans for the home was reportedly drawn, calmly, by Mr Wright in two hours, ahead of a surprise visit to his home by Kaufmann. The home was used by the Kaufman family from 1937 to 1963. In 1963, Kaufmann, Jr. donated the property to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. In 1964, it was opened to the public as a museum.
For a full description of the landmark, refer to this site
I visited Fallingwaters in the late summer of 1993 and in the spring of 1994. The home was, as expected, an architectural marvel, and the guided tour was predictably an eye-opener. In my first visit, we arrived late in the afternoon, when the shadows were beginning to lengthen, and the light was beginning to mellow and turn a pleasant yellow. I remembered the busyness of the water-sports concessions across the site and the rafters enjoying their time in the sun; and the busyness of our young family, as we bustled into our car towards evening, when the subtle chill and the first hint of autumn permeated through our summer attire. We approached our first winter not realizing that ‘there’s ‘snow place like Pittsburgh.
As we filed past the majestic Wright cantilevers to the intimate artifacts that made the past lives and created the homely echoes of the Kaufmanns who lived at Fallingwaters, I glimpsed the rationale of others, like the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, who chose not to open his family home to the public posthumously.
Perhaps memories of the past, are best recounted among friends and closed ones in the spirit of Timelessness, than amidst the empty corridors and chambers of a home once filled with laughter, voices, joyfulness and angst.
In the following year, my trip across rural southwestern Pennsylvania was yet another joyful event with old friends, recounted elsewhere in this blog.
Photo note: Kodachrome with a Nikon FE2 ∼August 1993