A unique country house, designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the southwest of Pennsylvania, 80 kilometers southeast of the city of Pittsburgh - in a picturesque area called Bear Creek.

Wright, an avid fan of Japanese architecture, managed to create an object saturated with dynamism and very successfully fit it into a natural and very picturesque natural environment. The building completely merges with the surrounding nature and is perceived as part of the landscape, and not as something alien to it. In this creation, Wright focuses on the interpenetrating external and internal spaces, symbolizing the harmony between man and nature.

Wright's masterpiece has been called "arguably the most famous home in America today, if not the world." Almost immediately after the completion of the construction, the American magazine Time called "The House Above the Falls" "Wright's most beautiful work." Another American magazine, Smithsonian, added The House Above the Falls to its list of 28 Places to Visit Before You Die. In 2007, the building was ranked twenty-ninth on America's Favorite Architecture.

After the famous American writer Henry Luce told the readers about "The House over the Falls" from the pages of leading American magazines, this place became a cult place. Visitors from all over the country were drawn here. Among them were many celebrities of those years: Albert Einstein, Ingrid Bergman, William Randolph Hirst, Marlene Dietrich. The fame of this amazing building even reached the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. The President, despite his busy schedule, still managed to find time to see this architectural miracle with his own eyes. In total, the House above the waterfall has already been visited by more than 6 million people.

Where did modern private architecture come from?

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Wright's Fundamental Principles

Reduce to a minimum the number of necessary building parts and the number of individual rooms in the house, forming a whole as a closed space, subdivided so that the whole is permeated with air and freely visible, giving a sense of unity.

1. To connect the building as a whole with its site by giving it a horizontal length and emphasizing planes parallel to the ground, but not occupying the best part of the site by the building, thus leaving this better part to use it, for functions related to the life of the house ; it is a continuation of the horizontal planes of the floors of the house, extending beyond its limits.

2. Do not make the room a box, and the house - another box, for which turn the walls into screens that enclose the space; ceilings, floors and enclosing screens should flow into each other, forming one common enclosure of a space that has a minimum of subdivisions. To make all the proportions of the house more close to human proportions, a constructive solution with the lowest volume consumption and the most appropriate to the materials used, and the whole, thus, the most suitable for life in it. Apply straight lines and streamlined shapes.

3. Remove the base of the house, containing the unhygienic basement, from the ground, place it completely above the ground, turning it into a low plinth for the residential part of the house, making the foundation in the form of a low stone platform on which the house should stand.

4. All the necessary openings leading outward or inward must be brought into line with human proportions and placed in the scheme of the entire building naturally - either in a single form, or in groups. Usually they appear as transparent screens instead of walls, because all the so-called "architecture" of a house is expressed mainly in how these openings in the walls are grouped into rooms as enclosing screens. The interior as such now takes on a significant architectural expression, and there should be no holes cut in the walls, like holes cut in the walls of a box. "Punching holes in walls is violence."

5. Eliminate the combination of various materials and, as far as possible, strive to use one material in the building; not to use decorations that do not follow from the nature of the material, so that the building more clearly expresses the place in which they live, and so that the general character of the building clearly testifies to this. Straight lines and geometric shapes correspond to the work of the machine in construction, so that the interior naturally takes on the character of machine production.

6. Combine heating, lighting, water supply with building structures so that these systems become an integral part of the building itself. At the same time, the elements of the equipment acquire an architectural quality: the development of the ideal of organic architecture is also manifested here.

7. To combine with the building elements, as far as possible, furnishings, as elements of organic architecture, making them one with the building and giving them simple forms corresponding to the operation of the machine. Straight lines and rectangular shapes again.

8. Exclude the work of the decorator. If he does not bring styles to help, then he will certainly use "curls and flowers".

And More: Wright's Commandments to Young Architects.

1. Forget about all the architectures in the world if you don’t understand that they were good in their own way and in their time.

2. Let none of you enter architecture in order to earn a living, if you do not love architecture as a living principle, if you do not love it for its sake; prepare to be faithful to her, as a mother, to a friend, to yourself.

3. Beware of architecture schools in everything except engineering education.

4. Go to production, where you can see the action of machines and mechanisms that produce modern buildings, or work in practical construction until you can naturally move from construction to design.

5. Immediately begin to develop the habit of wondering “why” about anything you like or dislike.

6. Do not take anything for granted beautiful or ugly, but disassemble each building in parts, finding fault with every line. Learn to distinguish the curious from the beautiful.

7. Get into the habit of analyzing, over time the ability to analyze will give the opportunity to develop the ability of synthesis, which will also become a habit of the mind.

8. “Think in simple categories,” as my teacher used to say, keeping in mind that the whole is reduced to its parts and simplest elements on the basis of fundamental principles. Do this in order to go from the general to the particular, never confusing them, otherwise you will get confused yourself.

9. Cast aside the American idea of ​​"quick turnaround". To start a practical activity half-baked means to sell your innate right to be an architect for a lentil stew, or just die, pretending to be an architect.

10. Take your time to finish your preparation. At least ten years of preliminary preparation for architectural practice is required for an architect who wants to rise above the average in the ability to assess and in practical architectural practice.

12. Consider building a chicken coop as good work as building a cathedral. The size of the project means little in art, aside from financial issues. Expressiveness is taken into account in the actual calculation. Expressiveness can be great in small or small in large.

You should not put everything in life on a commercial footing, and precisely because you happened to live in the age of machines. For example, architecture today walks the streets for sale, as "getting a job" was the first principle of architecture. In architecture, work should look for a person, not a person for a job. In art, work and man are partners; none of them can be bought or sold to others. In the meantime, since what we have talked about is the highest and most beautiful kind of integrity, keep your own ideal of honesty so high that the most important thought of your ambition in life is to call yourself an honest person and look yourself straight in the eyes. Keep your ideal of honesty so high that you yourself cannot achieve it.

[F.L. Wright. "The future of architecture". State publishing house of literature on construction, architecture and building materials. Moscow - 1960]

House over the waterfall- Frank Wright's project, which was brought to life in the period from 1936-39. It is located in the southwest of the US state of Pennsylvania, in a wooded area called Bear Creek. The nearest city is Pittsburgh, it is located 80 kilometers to the northeast. In 1966, this one received the status of a United States National Historic Landmark. Today " House over the waterfall»Is included in the compulsory program of many tourist routes.

The history of the creation of the "House above the waterfall"

Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect who developed the House above the Falls project was a very famous and sought-after specialist in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. However, during the Great Depression of 1929-1933, he found himself practically out of work. During these years, he opened an art studio "Taliesin" at his home, which was attended by Edgar Kaufman, the son of an influential businessman from Pittsburgh. Edgar was very impressed with Wright's architectural ideas and persuaded his father to entrust him with the construction of their new country house. The difficulty was that the construction site was located in a rocky area. When Wright saw the picturesque surroundings of Bear Creek, he came up with the idea to create a house that would become part of this picture. During the construction of the House above the Falls, he tried to leave all the trees intact and not move a single boulder. To do this, the Pennsylvania engineering company Fayette Engineering Company of Uniontown made a detailed topographic survey of the site, showing all growing trees and the location of all rocks, rocks and streams.

Over the development of the project "Houses over the waterfall" Frank Wright worked with two colleagues, engineers Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters. In March 1936, they completed the design and began building the house. It lasted 6 years and cost 155 thousand US dollars. This amount included the cost of building the main house (75 thousand dollars), its decoration and interior furnishings (22 thousand dollars), a guest house, a garage and a servant's house (50 thousand dollars). Architect Frank Wright's fee was $ 8,000.
The exterior of the house is designed mainly in light colors, matching the color of the surrounding landscape. The interior of the whole house is similar in design to the exterior. There is almost no plaster inside the house. In order to soften the overly harsh look of stone walls and reinforced concrete, wood sheathing is actively used in the interior. Wright didn't stop at designing just one home. Many interior items were created according to his sketches. For example, carpets and living room furniture.
In 1963, Edgar Kaufman Jr. donated the House Above the Falls to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. In 1964, the house became a museum and was opened to the public. As of January 2008, the House Above the Falls was visited by about six million people. Despite its location in a remote corner of Pennsylvania, The House Above the Falls currently welcomes more than 150,000 visitors annually.

The house above the Waterfall hangs over the bear creek like some kind of alien structure.
He boggles the imagination. From here, from the spurs of the bear creek, it is actually the best
its tectonics is visible.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed everything in his head, using blueprints only to confirm
what he has already fully presented. Therefore, he was not particularly concerned that one September
day 1935 learned that his client Edgar J. Kaufman was going to arrive in his
studio "Taliesin" to see the long-promised project "Houses above the waterfall".
No blueprints existed.

The same Frank Lloyd Wright drawing that Kaufman bought.

Wright sat down at the drawing board and without hesitation drew a general plan, as well as a vertical and horizontal
fully finished projections.

His drawing, but from the side of the slope adjacent to the house. An impeccable perspective.

When Kaufman arrived and saw the project, he was stunned. From this day on - in spite of terrible hardships
Technically, furious controversy and huge spending - Kaufman remained inspired by this project.
The House Above the Falls inspired him for the rest of his life.

Kaufman and his wife used to spend their weekends in a scenic spot next to the Bear Creek Falls.
in the forests west of Pennsylvania. When they asked Wright to design a replacement for their little
prefab house, he proposed to create a house based on all the stones from which they fished and on
who were resting while swimming. At first this idea seemed doomed to them; house undoubtedly
will destroy your own raison d'être. But Wright was confident that he would improve nature.
His confidence was based on the principle of the console, and on material that he once shunned:
reinforced concrete.

On this staircase, which, as it were, flows out of the lower tier of the terrace, you can go down to the platform,
hanging over the very surface of the stream. In autumn, when the water flow becomes larger, its surface
almost touches the site. An extraordinary feeling, as if you are standing right on the water!

It was supposed to build a large and spacious house, but it was not supposed to go out to the river bank, but
straight into the air above the waterfall. Structurally, the terraces of the house were supposed to resemble leaves.
rhododendron, hanging over the river, or an amazing, but at the same time natural species of tinder fungus.
They should have been held in the same natural continuation of the river bank in the form of walls and pillars.
from the stone quarried right there.

In the exterior, the House Above the Waterfall seems to cling to the surrounding rocks. Merged rounded
concrete beams and rough, angular stone layers create a whimsical symbiosis, giving rise to a
stability, seemingly unstable by the definition of the structure.

These plans were triumphantly implemented. Without destroying the beauty of this place, the house is
the embodiment of harmony between man and nature.
In a different setting, the huge terraces might appear aggressive and boastful; here they are
look natural and inevitable, as if this is a way of building some unknown tribe.

The interior of the house also admits the theme of textured stone and plastic concrete, however, the premises
do not look like dark stone caves due to the wide, panoramic glazing. Moreover, in
Pennsylvania is generally warm.

The premises in the house are quite traditional: a large single living space and four spacious bedrooms.
But rooms are of secondary importance compared to the complex multi-layered organism of concrete
terraces and stones holding them. Sometimes rooms are carved in stones, sometimes they are
sections of the terrace enclosed by glass walls in steel frames. The elements of the building are intricate, but
without any special "bells and whistles", since they correspond to the general idea: the flight of stairs descends
from the opening in the living room floor and hovers directly above the surface of the stream; three tree trunks
sprout directly into the floor of the western terrace; an uncut boulder protrudes from the stone-paved floor
like the rock on which the house was laid. This finishing touch was suggested by Kaufman himself and
immediately fully approved by the architect.

From the inside, from the side of the covered part of the terrace, the staircase to the water can be closed with such a clever design
so that the cold from the water does not penetrate inside. By the way, notice the contrast between the angular, embossed, almost
sharp stone, and soft rounded concrete lines. A wonderful example of revealing character
material in architecture.

But to live in such an architectural masterpiece, you have to pay dearly, as in the psychological,
and in the material sense. Many years after the completion of the Kaufman home
watched with concern as the structure cracked and sagged.

In a completely different way, the architect reacted to the vegetation that surrounds the house. If into a rock, into a stone
the building bites into, holds on to it with all its might, then the trees gently, carefully bypasses with their openwork
concrete structures.

Engineers were regularly invited to inspect the building, who also regularly advised to support
console racks. Of course, this would destroy the whole idea. Kaufman did not give up and the house survived
almost in the form in which it was created, now protected by the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Western
Pennsylvania.

Source - tartle.net/grivarius

Southwest Pennsylvania, 80 kilometers southeast of the city of Pittsburgh. 1936-1939.

General view from the stream.

General view from the stream.

Fragment of the frontal view.

View at the entrance to the bridge.

Photo from the bridge over the stream.

Photo from the bridge over the stream.

Beginning of the ring road.

Beginning of the ring road.

From the side of the road.

Swimming pool and outbuilding.

Terrace above the waterfall.

View from the upper terrace.

View of vertical stained-glass windows and walls.

View of the upper terrace.

Go to the upper guest house.

Structural elements above the driveway connecting the house to the slope

Fragment of the outer descent to the stream.

Detail from the back of the house.

Fragment.

Fragment over the stream.

Interior. Master bedroom on the upper level.

Interior. View of a fragment of the staircase on the second floor.

Guest bedroom. Walnut work table.

Living room.

Fragment of the living room.

Fragment of the living room.

Fragment of a rocky soil exit by the living room fireplace.

Dining table in the living room.

Fragment of the living room.

Fragment of the living room ceiling.

Fragment of the interior.

Fragment of the interior.

Library ladder.

Floor plan on the living room level (first floor).

Second floor plan.

Third floor plan.

The Kaufman House, better known as the Waterfall House, was completed in 1939. This is the pinnacle of Wright's work and all the residential buildings created before that for half a century were creative experiments leading to a masterpiece.

Among Wright's numerous buildings (only residential buildings - more4 00), several should be noted, in which it significantly approached the final top. First of all, this is homeWinslow in River Forest, Illinois, (1894). The front facade, in its simplicity of embodiment, resembles a child's drawing - a house with a pitched roof, an entrance door and square windows. The first floor is faced with bright yellow bricks, and the front door and two adjacent windows are articulated with white plaster and trims. The second floor is tiled with dark brown tiles, which almost merges with the window openings. Therefore, the effect of a "floating roof" is created, visually detached from the first floor. This lift-off effect is enhanced by the shadow from the large roof overhang. By the power of generalization, the front facade acts as a sign.

The complete opposite of it is the courtyard facade, where the volumes of the building are sculpted andasymmetrical. Side facades in the overall solution of the volume of the building are not decisive. One of them is articulated by a bay window, and the other - by an entrance arch-canopy. Later, Wright experimented a lot with the shape of the building, when all the facades were equal, but the experience of different reactions to the environment (street - "front" and courtyard - facing nature, facades) was extremely important for him.

Ward Willits House, Highland Park, Chicago, Illinois, 1902, is an example of a centered all-façade composition.The cruciform plan firstly makes it possible to clearly define the center of the interior space, which Wright fixes with the fireplace and its chimneys. And secondly, it significantly increases the external perimeter of the building's interaction with the external natural space. The facade planes facing different directions of the world are three times more than the traditional volume with four facades (12 facade planes).

You should also pay attention to the relative degree of freedom of the internal space. Individual rooms seem to "float" within the outer boundaries of the building.

Robie House, Chicago, USA, 1909. Working in a harsh city, with a stretch stretched along a street front, Wright transforms the cruciform plan by disassembling its cross into two linear volumes. The linear development of the space is emphasized by two triangular bay windows at the ends of the volume facing the street. The house of Robie is characterized by horizontal divisions, which are emphasized in every possible way by composition. Wright strives to land an already low volume, to bring it closer to the ground.The base of the building is treated as a platform.

The successful implementation of Robie's house suggests that Wright has fully mastered the basic principles of design thinking, which allowed him to embody them in their pure form thirty years later in The House above the Falls. This is primarily:

- the principle of structure - separation of the volume into its component partswith the subsequent assembly from them of a new volume on the basis of the principlethe relative autonomy of each of the parts;

— reducing the floor (horizontal level) to the platform;

- horizontal development of a conventionally limited space;

- integration into a single whole of two opposites - the main volumeopen to nature and "inner cave" pressed against the hillside;

- withdrawal of verticals of chimney and stove channels outside the aisles of the buildingand themcontrasting contrast to "floating" horizontal platforms floors;

- the absence of a rigidly fixed center ("floating", the conditional center on every level.

All other characteristics of the building, according to which it traditionally refers to the so-called "organic architecture", are subordinate and not essential (the use of local limestone for horizontal, layered masonry, characteristic interior details, such as the preservation of the rock as a fragment of the floor by the fireplace, imitation of the bottom of the river in the flooring). Riddle "Houses above the waterfall"consists in the fact that the correct geometric forms used in it do not distinguish it from the natural environment, but make it a special part of nature. Later, Wright unsuccessfully tried to enter the natural area with various buildings, using circles and natural materials for this, but he did not succeed. The closer he tried to get closer to nature, the faster nature fled from him. So the bogey of "organic architecture" created by architectural criticism based on the buildings of the late Wright is an incident that should remain on its conscience.

“The sketch is ready,” Wright said to the interviewee and agreed to show the work. The seven gentlemen who were present at the telephone conversation decided that this was a failure - the architect had not yet begun work.
In the next two hours, they witnessed the miracle of creation: on three tracing papers, a draft design of the house, called "Waterfalls", appeared.
It contained everything, right down to the benches from which you can admire the flow of falling water. A few hours later, the architect's friends were amazed at the customer's reaction. After looking at the tracing paper, Kaufman simply told the architect: "Nothing needs to be changed."
The customer knew perfectly well who he was dealing with. Their acquaintance began with the placement in a department store of the Kaufman family of a model of the city, created by Frank Lloyd Wright, an architect without a degree, author of the concept of a house embedded in natural surroundings.
Wright's initial proposal confused the client. The architect proposed the plot himself, while at the same time convincing the customer that it would not be so interesting to build below or above the waterfall. The concept of that time assumed the dominance of the house over the central object of the composition - the waterfall. Kaufman, who believed, was imbued with the idea of ​​creating a house that would become part of the landscape, it would be almost inside a waterfall, while trees would not be cut down, boulders would not move, in a word, the natural environment would not change.

Steel supports appeared above the stream, on which concrete terraces were located - load-bearing elements of the structure, the weight of which was reduced due to the use of limestone in the vertical plane. Wright created a spectacular composition: the house seemed to grow out of a cliff (part of the rock entered the space of the house and became an element of the interior). The house blended into the world of boulders and trees as if it itself once grew on this rock - a strange, but completely natural mushroom, polyp, surrounded by untouched trees and huge stones.
Construction costs amounted to 155 thousand dollars - now the approximate equivalent of this amount is 2.5 million. At the same time, Wright's remuneration did not exceed eight thousand.
But not everything is as wonderful as we would like ... In the design, artistically impeccable, some engineering details were not taken into account, and the later improvements made in 2002 cost almost 112 million dollars. It was necessary to increase the strength of the supports of the structure hanging over the stream.

The Kaufmans used the house from 1937-1963. Subsequently, it was donated to the nature conservation fund, was reconstructed, acquired the status of a museum and has received at least six million visitors since 1964. It attracts nearly 150 thousand people a year. And the author of the project remained in the history of architecture as one of the creators of the popular idea of ​​"green building" - inscribing architectural objects into the natural environment for full interaction with it.
In Wright's works for middle-class customers, this concept continued to develop through the use of standard structures, the monotony of which the master compensated for with spatial effects - he placed tape windows under the roof, "raising" the structure above the walls and filling it with light.
Notable projects by the architect include the Prairie House series, the Yamamura House in Japan, the Elkins Park Synagogue in Pennsylvania, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and the famous Museum of Modern Art in New York. The work of Frank Lloyd Wright can be described in his own words: "Cities of wide horizons." That is how he named his town-planning concept. Frank Lloyd Wright's life lives up to his sworn words: "I am a genius!"