Organic form was Frank Lloyd Wright's credo, and its most splendid embodiment is Fallingwater, designed and built for the Pittsburgh merchant Edgar Kaufmann in the 1930s. The private dwelling, which juts directly over a waterfall at Bear Run in western Pennsylvania, is the boldest and most personal architectural statement of Wright's mature years.
This volume is a total revision -- both in text and illustrations -- of the standard document of Fallingwater. With the opening of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, valuable new material has come to light that has provided the basis for this completely rewritten and expanded account. The new material has enabled the author, Wright expert Donald Hoffmann, to tell a more comprehensive, vivid, and authentic story. This book is the complete record of the birth, growth, and maturity of an architectural masterpiece. It documents in special detail Fallingwater's architectural innovations: its cantilevered construction, its ingenious integration with a majestic waterfall, the cascading staircases, organic use of ornament, and the problematic but ultimately triumphant use of reinforced concrete.
Preliminary drawings, sketches, and plans show the early phases of the project. Over 100 photographs depict in both panoramic and intimate detail Fallingwater's site, every phase of its construction, and its distinctive interior and exterior detailing. The superb text tells the story in full, from the earliest notions of the project, through heated confrontations over issues of aesthetics and structure, to its completion. In every aspect, this carefully researched book offers readers an extremely rare insider's view of how one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites came into being. Fascinating. -- The New York Times.