House by the Falls: Architectural Creation Near New York City You Must See

What is so unusual about this building? The author of the column, Alexander Loev, talks about this.

Once, having burst out of the beaten path - the Americans call it off beaten path - I ended up at the House by the Falls. Not alone, surrounded by my tourists ...

House by the Waterfall. The Kaufman House - its creator - the greatest American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. A native of the hinterland. Midwest. The brightest exponent of the spirit of America, its vast expanses. He brilliantly reflected all this in the famous Prairie Style, where the housing will be spread over the ground ...

The Home Order was essentially alms: Frank Lloyd Wright was out of work, and his Apprentice persuaded his father, a department store owner in Philadelphia, to commission the Master to build a new home.

Kaufman was not only a prominent businessman, but also an enlightened man, a Jewish public figure. Subsequently, a legendary conference of Jewish cultural figures was held in the house, in which Albert Einstein took an active part. He lived in the Big Guest House.

... In the mornings, the inhabitants and guests jumped straight from the living room into the deepening of the stream flowing under the house through the house.

Decades later, we, a group of tourists, discovered this House for ourselves ...

As we approached the House, I saw how the expression on the faces of my companions had changed, and with relief I realized that they appreciated and understood ...

(A small triumph of our crazy profession.)

What is so unusual about this building? First of all, contrast. After all, an ordinary house, in essence, is completely contrary to nature. It is artificial - nature is natural. That is why we say that we are "breaking out into nature" from our homes ... And here, in the forest by Bear Creek, we find ourselves in front of a real miracle. Rough and huge reinforced concrete consoles, cynical rectangular slabs, openly protruding above the stream of water, suddenly find themselves so organically inscribed in the forest background that people stop, amazed at the amazing fusion of the structure with the romantic landscape.

From Wright's book: “I think when you look at the image of this house, you can hear the sound of a waterfall. The house is not hostile to its surroundings. "

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Masterly work! The master took building elements, long tired of their routine, and discovered in them such a power of expressiveness that the House sounded with a powerful chord ... Remember, even Goethe said about architecture that this is music frozen in stone.

... The miracle unfolded gradually - in all its beauty. An excursion inside the House is a journey through another world, where the measure of things is completely different. And the familiar interiors have transformed into something unfamiliar, but surprisingly comfortable in sensations. Endless doors and partitions disappeared. The house became freer and more suitable for living in it.

As if by magic, new architectural effects appeared: walls, ceilings, floors became parts of each other. Parts flowing into one another, acquiring continuity, infinity ...

The prospect of such inevitable simplicity and unspeakable harmony opened up to us that we understood what kind of masterpiece we were facing. A clear perfection of all lines was received, the unity of the design of the embodiment became clear. Wright calls this "fluidity of space" and "free plan." This is his concept of architecture.

From Wright's The Future of Architecture: "Sculptors and painters ask me where sculpture and painting are in my buildings?" I answer: "My buildings are themselves painting and sculpture."

Frank Lloyd Wright was reminiscent of such giants of national culture as Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry Thoreau: like them, he was a great spiritual leader who rejected any kind of conformity. He was a true innovator!

He was called the Last Romantic and the First Functionalist. He embraced the open plan of housing as characteristic of the American tradition, but not known in other countries. (Remember how you were initially struck by a typical American apartment: without a hallway, corridor, and other familiar attributes).

Thanks to Wright, instead of a set of "boxes in a box," the external environment penetrated inward and the interior opened outward.

The master was also a skilled designer. In the House, as if transferred from an ideal future, the furniture and all the furnishings were created by him personally, the atmosphere was thought out to the smallest detail - the psychological mood of the integral living system.

Frank Lloyd Wright was seriously involved in introducing a new conceptual line: he created his own educational institution in the form of a Colony. A personality of truly Renaissance proportions, he opened craft workshops reminiscent of the Florentine Art Schools of the High Renaissance. True, the unwritten charter, the ideology of its communal system required such a breadth of perception that was not available to everyone. An example is Svetlana Alliluyeva. Having settled in the Colony with her last husband, the famous architect Porter, who was Wright's associate, she was ready to accept new ideas. However, having arrived from the society of "universal obedience", Svetlana Alliluyeva did not have the necessary breadth of thinking and an attempt to adapt to new, free communication broke her ...

Both Wright's philosophical concept and architecture did not immediately find acceptance. However, today the Private Country Villa has already become part of the national treasure.