Click for LARGE photo
[Fallingwater from south-southeast]
View at the main (living room) level, from south-southeast.
The lowest level visible in this photo is the main level, where the end of the living room is flanked by terraces on the left and on the right. The stream (Bear Run) runs under them, flowing from east to west (right to left). The site chosen by Wright was lower in the canyon than was expected (from the standpoint of maximizing the view available), in keeping with the theme of a harmonious and natural relationship to the setting.
      The second-floor terrace in the foreground (over the living room) leads out from the master bedroom, and the guest room is to its right. Rising higher than any other part of the main house is the stone edifice of the west tower, and extending to the right from it in the photo is the third-floor gallery. What appears in this photo to be a fourth floor is actually the guest house and garage, which sits up on the hill behind the main house, connected by a covered walkway.
Original photo, taken by the webmaster.
Click here or on photo for much larger (1536x1024 pixel, 552k) 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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