Fallingwater: Where Design, Structure, & Psychology Converge
Fallingwater: Where Design, Structure, & Psychology Converge
Psychological effects of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture.
Fallingwater has been called the greatest home of the 20th century.
The Smithsonian names it as one of 28 must-see places for your bucket
list. As a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, I have wanted to
tour the home since first seeing a photo of it decades ago. Over Easter
weekend I made the trip.
The Kaufmann family of Pittsburg wanted a summer home in the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania. In 1935 they selected Wright to design it. By 1937 Fallingwater was complete. The home is constructed on a rocky outcrop over the Bear Run falls. Wright believed that a building should never be constructed on a hill or plot of land, but should be merged with the landscape, as if it were a natural extension of its surroundings.
When Edgar Kaufmann, the family’s patriarch, was asked to describe Fallingwater in one word, he replied, “romance.” Kaufmann clearly did not mean the superficial romance of personal ads, Valentine’s Day cards, and mood music. In the classical sense, “romance” refers to a philosophy of life and an attitude towards living. It means that every experience, day in and day out, matters. It means that both ordinary events and special occasions can be ennobled and made meaningful by the values, commitments, and ethics that we bring with us. Real romance is roughly equivalent to what we might call “zest for life.” That’s what Fallingwater evokes.
On approaching the building, I was struck by how much more massive it appears in person than in photos. Its enormity is in part an optical illusion: Actually, there is a detached guest house directly above the main house. The Kaufmann residence has three levels, and the guest house appears to one walking on the grounds to be a fourth level of Fallingwater.
Wright is noted for his conviction that the hearth is the heart of a home. So upon entering Fallingwater, I was interested to see where he placed it for the Kaufmanns. I expected it to be somewhere deep in the interior, with rooms, nooks, alcoves, etc. designed around it. I was wrong.
One walks through the front door into a massive open living area surrounded on three sides by glass, looking out onto the wooded hillside. The first thing one sees in that vast expanse is the hearth. A trend one notices in Fallingwater (probably also in other Wright buildings) is how he uses portals and corridors for psychological effect.
Immediately upon entering from the lush, natural world of the woods and stream, one encounters the hearth, a dining area, and a living room. One feels welcome, comforted, at home, at peace. And yet the expanse of windows brings the woods, hills, and stream almost inside. Wright was conscious of the effect of design on one’s mood and sense of well-being, and he used design and structure to evoke the desired reactions: Stimulus/response.
There are at least two places where the home’s outer walls bisect massive boulders, with half of the rock outside and half inside the house. One of those boulders is incorporated into the construction of the hearth, blurring the line between inside and outside. In every room, on every level of the home, generous use of glass draws in nature.
H. L. Mencken, the legendary journalist and essayist from the same era as Fallingwater, once wrote of his exasperation with people who chose to build and live in ugly homes. Ironically, the homes he chose to write about were also in western Pennsylvania. He noticed these hideous homes from the window of his railroad coach as he traveled eastbound from Pittsburg – not far from Fallingwater. Mencken referred to people who desire dismal dwellings as having a “libido for the ugly.” Libido in Freudian psychology means life force or primal urge. We see many, many examples of this libido for the ugly in modern tract home construction.
Libido for the ugly – or for the beautiful, as the Kaufmanns possessed – yields correspondingly ugly or beautiful buildings. And the buildings, in turn, can evoke psychological responses from those who dwell within.
Walls and floors of the home are natural stone from the local hills. In transitioning from one level of Fallingwater to the next, one takes stone steps along narrow, shadowy corridors. And then one emerges into beautiful rooms, well-lit by ambient sunlight thanks to the numerous windows. This again illustrates Wright’s use of transitional areas to channel both foot traffic and emotional reactions.
Something one often hears about Wright’s buildings is that he designed rooms to suit his own small stature. Low ceilings are cited as an example.
At Fallingwater no ceiling was so low that a person six feet tall or even a little taller would be uncomfortable. One small bedroom had a ceiling approximately 8 feet high, and that was the lowest I observed. The rooms were open, welcoming, and comfortable. As with most homes of that era, the bedrooms were smaller than in modern homes.
The Kaufmann family of Pittsburg wanted a summer home in the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania. In 1935 they selected Wright to design it. By 1937 Fallingwater was complete. The home is constructed on a rocky outcrop over the Bear Run falls. Wright believed that a building should never be constructed on a hill or plot of land, but should be merged with the landscape, as if it were a natural extension of its surroundings.
When Edgar Kaufmann, the family’s patriarch, was asked to describe Fallingwater in one word, he replied, “romance.” Kaufmann clearly did not mean the superficial romance of personal ads, Valentine’s Day cards, and mood music. In the classical sense, “romance” refers to a philosophy of life and an attitude towards living. It means that every experience, day in and day out, matters. It means that both ordinary events and special occasions can be ennobled and made meaningful by the values, commitments, and ethics that we bring with us. Real romance is roughly equivalent to what we might call “zest for life.” That’s what Fallingwater evokes.
On approaching the building, I was struck by how much more massive it appears in person than in photos. Its enormity is in part an optical illusion: Actually, there is a detached guest house directly above the main house. The Kaufmann residence has three levels, and the guest house appears to one walking on the grounds to be a fourth level of Fallingwater.
Wright is noted for his conviction that the hearth is the heart of a home. So upon entering Fallingwater, I was interested to see where he placed it for the Kaufmanns. I expected it to be somewhere deep in the interior, with rooms, nooks, alcoves, etc. designed around it. I was wrong.
One walks through the front door into a massive open living area surrounded on three sides by glass, looking out onto the wooded hillside. The first thing one sees in that vast expanse is the hearth. A trend one notices in Fallingwater (probably also in other Wright buildings) is how he uses portals and corridors for psychological effect.
Immediately upon entering from the lush, natural world of the woods and stream, one encounters the hearth, a dining area, and a living room. One feels welcome, comforted, at home, at peace. And yet the expanse of windows brings the woods, hills, and stream almost inside. Wright was conscious of the effect of design on one’s mood and sense of well-being, and he used design and structure to evoke the desired reactions: Stimulus/response.
There are at least two places where the home’s outer walls bisect massive boulders, with half of the rock outside and half inside the house. One of those boulders is incorporated into the construction of the hearth, blurring the line between inside and outside. In every room, on every level of the home, generous use of glass draws in nature.
H. L. Mencken, the legendary journalist and essayist from the same era as Fallingwater, once wrote of his exasperation with people who chose to build and live in ugly homes. Ironically, the homes he chose to write about were also in western Pennsylvania. He noticed these hideous homes from the window of his railroad coach as he traveled eastbound from Pittsburg – not far from Fallingwater. Mencken referred to people who desire dismal dwellings as having a “libido for the ugly.” Libido in Freudian psychology means life force or primal urge. We see many, many examples of this libido for the ugly in modern tract home construction.
Libido for the ugly – or for the beautiful, as the Kaufmanns possessed – yields correspondingly ugly or beautiful buildings. And the buildings, in turn, can evoke psychological responses from those who dwell within.
Walls and floors of the home are natural stone from the local hills. In transitioning from one level of Fallingwater to the next, one takes stone steps along narrow, shadowy corridors. And then one emerges into beautiful rooms, well-lit by ambient sunlight thanks to the numerous windows. This again illustrates Wright’s use of transitional areas to channel both foot traffic and emotional reactions.
Something one often hears about Wright’s buildings is that he designed rooms to suit his own small stature. Low ceilings are cited as an example.
At Fallingwater no ceiling was so low that a person six feet tall or even a little taller would be uncomfortable. One small bedroom had a ceiling approximately 8 feet high, and that was the lowest I observed. The rooms were open, welcoming, and comfortable. As with most homes of that era, the bedrooms were smaller than in modern homes.
