Falling Water

Last weekend me and my friend almost planned to go to Vegas and cancelled at the last minute. He came to my place from Jersey. We had 3-4 days holidays and only had Niagara Falls in our plan. So I started looking for places to visit around my place and nearby cities such as Cleveland, buffalo and Pittsburgh. I was going through a digital tour guide of Pittsburgh and saw the picture of Falling water. Falling water is a famous building designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I have already heard about the building and seen pictures but never knew or probably forgot that it is located near Pittsburgh and just 3 hour drive from my current place Erie, PA.

I came to know about this building when I read Aynrand's Fountainhead. I read in wiki that the lead character of fountainhead , Howard Roark is partly inspired from the real life architect Frank Lloyd wright. So I read about him and came to know Falling water was his best work and considered to be the best all time work of American architecture. Smithsonian magazine mentioned it as one of 28 places " to visit before you die".

So when I realized that the place was just 3 hours from my place, I decided I have to go and got very much excited. I looked into its website and read that advance booking is preferable and it was true. When I checked the ticket, it was almost sold out for entire weekend and only few slots were available and booked two tickets in those slot without any second thoughts. There was also a house called Kentuck Knob which is located 7 miles from Falling water, which was also designed by the same architect. I booked for that too.

We first visited Kentuck Knob, which was a small but beautiful house. It was mostly designed in a hexagon shape. The whole house, the living room, bed rooms, kitchen everything was designed in a hexagon shape. I knew this place was not famous as falling water but it set up the expectations for falling water. It was like checking out a promo for a big budget movie.

Then it was time to checkout the master piece. We reached Falling water and was allotted in batch number 68. Each batch had upto 12-13 people and a guide. It was an one hour guided tour. Our guide was an old lady and she started telling about the history behind the building and its origin and etc. Then we visited each rooms in the building with her describing about the architecture details about each rooms, it's cantilevered style beams which made the living room looking like hanging in the air above the falls. From the Living room, it had steps down where you can walk down and dip your leg in falls. They didn't let us though :(. The view from the balcony was amazing. We didn't want to move from one room to next but she was pushing us to continue the tour as the next batches was behind us and previous batches was also moving forward. It was like one batch in living room, one in balcony, one in bedroom n each moving at constant pace to cover whole building in one hour and also to accommodate more people on a day. We were in a dilemma as to whether admire the view and buildings architecture or to listen to her lecture about the architecture details and some interesting stories behind it. I didn't wanna miss either, so it was a tough job. I don't think I have listened to a lecture with this much concentration. I don't want to go into the history behind it because you can read that in wiki and not into the architecture details too, because I may not explain properly and you mainly have to to be there to experience it.

But my excitement was solely based on Howard Roark's character. Whether I liked Fountainhead or not is a different topic, but while I was reading I used to think no one can be like that Howard's character. That much adamant, refusing to accept or follow conventional methods, the individualistic philosophy and his architecture vision. Aynrand herself mentioned the inspiration was limited to some of Frank's architectural ideas and the pattern of his career. So I wanted to see if I can see a glimpse of Howard in Frank or vice versa. Based on the stories and details I heard from the guide I did find a lot of similarities between them.

Frank Lloyd Wright used to design both exterior and interior of the house including furniture's and the house owners are not supposed to change anything without his consent. Sounds very rude right? Well he had his reasons it seems. For example in Falling water, there was no curtains or blinds in any rooms except one guest room for which the owners to argue with him as they wanted their guests to have privacy. The reason is the house was built over falls in a mountain. You wouldn't know if a house is coming out of a mountain or a mountain grew inside the house. The view from any place in the house was breathtaking. So he told "I built it so it could enjoy the nature all the time, so you can't hide anything with blinds or curtains." It may sound rude for you guys now, but if you're in that house you would know he is right. He designed each floor in certain limited height so that there won't be much space above the windows. The reason he told was " if you have more space in walls, you would hang lot of unwanted stuff and that might divert the attention from the natures view from the windows". Again we felt he was right. The building had a parking spot at the top floor. As its a mountain, it had a driveway leading upto the top floor. He seems to have told " I won't build a garage for you because you will put all your unwanted stuff in the garage and spoil it, so I ll just design a parking spot". Man!!! Was he right? Or was he right?. 

His philosophy was Organic architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design approaches so sympathetic and well integrated with its site, that buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part of a unified, interrelated composition. Just copied the definition from wiki ;). You can read more about it and you may understand the reason for his stubbornness.

One more incident i heard was, Frank was done with designing furnitures and the owner of the house Mr.Kaufmann wrote him saying table in his room was very small. Frank replied "I'm done with designing furniture's, move on". But finally Frank agreed to increase the table size after Kaufmann replied "Ok. But my table is too small to sign the architect cheque ;)".

The initial budget of the building was 30k dollar in 1936 itself. But after completing, it costed 155k dollars it seems. But the owners didn't complaint after seeing the finished work.

After listening to all these stories I couldn't help but relate Frank and Howard. It was like one of your favorite fictional character was once alive in another name. We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but we took few from exterior. This is the best view of Falling water, but as I said no picture can do justice for it. You have to be there to experience it. If you happen to come to Pittsburgh or nearby, don't miss this place. I didn't hear about this place from any of my friends. Almost no one was aware of it. So I just wanted to share my experience and let you know about the place.

Believe me, you will fall-in-love with Falling water. I definitely did and my friend literally had to pull me away from there once the visit and photo sessions are over. Other than Falling Water and kentuck Knob there is also a place called Duncan House nearby. And in various cities you can find many of Frank's buildings including Ohio, Newyork, illinois etc. So if you're anywhere in USA now, google it and visit soon and update me about each work :).