Click for LARGE photo
[Fallingwater: driveway over bridge to entrance]
Fallingwater, driveway over bridge to entrance (from south-southeast).
The driveway crosses a small bridge over the stream (Bear Run), and leads to the "front" door, which is tucked away in what at first seems to be an insignificant corner. In fact it is on the opposite corner from what could be argued is the "grand facade," the famous view from downstream, which Frank Lloyd Wright had in mind as he designed the house.
      Visible in the upper-left corner of the photo is the third-floor terrace, which leads outward from the gallery.
Original photo, taken by the webmaster.
Click here or on photo for much larger (1536x1024 pixel, 541k) version.

More years passed until I began to consider how unconventional a country house Fallingwater really is. A regular country house on ample acres would have a standard program in which outbuildings edge the approach, then a gateway announces the private domain (with implications of guards and challenges, a checkpoint) and in due course one reaches the entrance front, emphatically centered on the main door. On one hand lie hospitable facilities, on the other, work areas of all sorts. Unseen but promised is a garden front, more open and relaxed than the approach facade. Wright sidestepped this whole program - or did he?

- Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Fallingwater: A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House, pp. 172-3.



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