Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water

The whole experience of falling water is very much a temporal one. The composition relays on and enhances the pre-existing natural conditions of the place. This works because the observer believes to have witness an event of temporal dimension. The event seems to belong into the realm of phenomena, very much like something that just stopped been or like a moment in time (fig1).

Figure 1 William Chambers, Ruined Arch

It is well documented that Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by eastern sources, especially from Japan, where the seasons play a most important role in the conception of the design (fig 2 & 3). In earlier houses such the Willets this Japanese influence is clear, like in the way the house is rendered to contrast with the timber windows (fig 4).

Figure 2 Willets House & Figure 3 South-West view showing balconies

Figure 4 Falling Water in Winter

But this particular work by Frank Lloyd Wright is somewhat contrary to his style an unlike any previous work done by him. One of the most significant evidence of this is the apparently lack of ornamentation especially on the cantilevered balconies (fig 5).

But like many of his works, the spaces seem to be one and contentious, especially in terms of the nature of the materials, the building strongly follows his “tectonic” idea of from the ground up.

So why is this building so different than his previous work? At the time Wright saw himself as the greatest architect that ever lived or ever will, but somehow he felt threatened by the rising of new modern architecture in Europe.

Figure 5 Falling Water in Autumn

By now many architectural critics in America already portrayed him as an antique. This may explain the change in style of falling water, as a need to rise to this challenge form Europe.

He believed this new architecture from Europe stripped clean of all considerations but function and utility, and thus removed of the symbolic and denying nature.

For Wright the idea of structure was more like it is a means to the end and not the end itself. This is demonstrated in the balconies and terraces of falling water where one does not know whether the parapets are supporting the terraces of if instead these are supporting the earlier.

Another example of this is the folded horizontal structure (fig 6), where it is only used to define the spaces rather than for showing clarity in the structure. Also one has to think as well that the vertical supports of the composition are obscured, which is done to emphasise the floating quality of the building.

Figure 6 Internal Structure folded

So it is clear than that in Falling water the spiritual qualities of the house rule over the naive notions of structural clarity. That is also clear and emphasised by the way the material is employed.

Supports are rough stone symbolizing nature and earth horizontal elements are made of concrete, seemingly springing from the supports and beyond, this gave the composition movement and tension.

This house can actually be seem as the ultimate effort in disintegrating the box, and as for the relationship between the exterior and the interior it would be very hard to separate them. The place was conceived to view the outside and to be part of the landscape as well.

In his constructions, Frank Lloyd Wright never really accepted the frame construction but rather the space and the structure were identical. He was not really interested in the intellectual side of Architecture or in speculating on the nature of the problem of it.

The Building

There is a contrasting use of materials. One is the stone, quarried about hundred and fifty metres from site, which is to serve all vertical elements. This was employed to make a more intimate connection to the rocky area of the waterfall.

The second is the reinforced concrete, which it is used to create the horizontal elements. This part of the house is somehow a floating element as if to subject the moving element or the water of the place itself.

Also the materials outside correspond to the ones used outside, and example of this is the underside of the slab of the living room, which is plastered and painted the same as the external parapets (fig 7) and the use of stone for the floor in the living room (fig 8).

Figure 7 Detail showing the painted and rendered exterior & Figure 8 Detail showing stone patterns

That is to emphasise the connection with the exterior. But the material as well is used in a more natural way, as in the case of the stone patterns. These were laid randomly way to blend in more with the surrounds (fig 9).

Figure 9 Details of fold on the section and parapet

The plastic building material was not used exactly like in modern European buildings. Here the concrete is not meant to read as one single plane, instead the concrete parts are perceive as organic, and example of this is the thick and curved parapets and the fact that the surface was going to be painted in a gold leaf colour (fig 10).

Wright strongly believed that materials should be meaningful and connected to the site but he did incorporate some elements form the international style but those aspects that benefited him, such in planning and massing.

Figure 10 Floor

A Flagstone Paving

B Asphalt-saturated wood deck

C Lead flashing

D Concrete slab

In terms of structures Wright do not follow the rational grid of Mies of Neutra or the rather abstract one of Le Corbusier, no instead he makes of structure a more representational from, more in one with nature, so to suit his purposes.

Wright himself compared the plastic continuity in reinforced concrete cantilevered with a tree, in the way branches come out of the trunk. In a way something similar is achieved in this construction if one views the house from the rear stonewall which acts as the trunk, where the cantilevered tray is acting as the branches of that tree.

Falling water was conceived as a serious of trays stacked on top of each other (fig 11), and folded along theirs base for rigidity and then turned up for continuity, which end up forming the lip of the parapet.

Figure 11 Window

A Flagstone Paving

B Asphalt-saturated wood deck

C Lead flashing

D Concrete slab

It is very interesting to mention that the system was not conceived as a post and beam construction but in Wright’s words they were supposed to “carry the floors” although not entirely true the building reads like so.

Technical details

Built: 1935-1936

The structure:

Consist of four piers set on the rock, three of concrete and one of stone, which supports the main floor. Then the structure above this is again four piers but of stone supporting the floors.

There are three types of floor of about 600 mm deep

Type 1 is the flat slab at top with thickness of 100 to 180 mm thickness, such in the kitchen and bedroom, which has small spans

Type 2 is the stepped structure, which runs between the piers

Type 3 this forms an inverted ribbed slab used on the first floor, and it is used to achieve enough depth, which gives stiffness for the cantilever. The floors are formed by wood boards and then covered with stone paving.

Windows:

These are made from standard metal sections (fig 12 & 13), so the design could not be customized, as it is the case with his timber windows, but the sections were modified to meet his ends. The vertical elements are treated different to the horizontal ones, to emphasize continuity and to de-emphasise the joint.

Figures 12 & 13 Details of windows

An important feature of the glassing is the fact that when the corner windows are open the corner disappears, which is done to dematerialise the building and to enhance the relationship between inside and outside (fig 14).

Figures 14 Details of windows

Conclusion

More and more it is hard to define what is the right or wrong style of Architecture or what is the most appropriate building technique to be employed, given the nature and the constraints of the market today, and also the social complexity in which architecture is taking place at this very moment.

But one should be able to find a way to establish aesthetics and values, which very much relates to the local language. In doing so, the materiality of this effort should reflect the technological advancements of the times.

Falling water in my view is a building where the new technology is readily available but it is used in such a way that a local language is develop and yet in many ways the building is in syntony with the times as well. Perhaps now it is an icon of the past but it continuous to inform the present.