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Fallingwater is considered Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous work, and one of the most significant and famous examples of American architecture. It was built for Edgar J. Kauffman, a Pittsburgh department store owner between 1936 and 1939 as a vacation home. It is located in Bear Run, in the Laurel Highlands area of western Pennsylvania. Ingeniously built into the top of a waterfall, it is one of the best examples of integrating a building's design with it's landscape and site.

The photographs on this page are just a few of the many that I took while my wife and I visited Fallingwater in 1999. You can find great deals on hotels near Fallingwater at Expedia.com.
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Fallingwater Books and Other Items

I hand-picked the books shown below. While I have not yet read them all, they are the most highly rated (by Amazon customers).

  • Fallingwater : A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House book cover
    Fallingwater : A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House
    An engaging, intimate, sumptuous appreciation of Fallingwater. The author not only trained with Wright, he is the son of the clients for Fallingwater and lived in and with the masterpiece all his life. He is able to explain the intentions of architect and client, and writes with both feeling and critical knowledge. The rich color photographs taken for this book are supported by views taken during construction, family photographs of the house in use, and excellent specially drawn plans of the house as built.
  • Fallingwater : Frank Lloyd Wright's Romance With Nature book cover
    Fallingwater : Frank Lloyd Wright's Romance With Nature
    80 page hardcover.

    Fallingwater nestled among the rocky woodlands of Pennsylvania is the focal point for every discussion of his inspired siting, use of organic materials, and employment of decorative motifs derived from nature and translated into glass, stone, and wood. Beautiful color interior photography, coupled with black and white shots of the dramatic setting, illustrate this new, richly textured tour of this legendary house.
  • Fallingwater, The House Tour
    Fallingwater, The House Tour
    (VHS)
    Your personal tour of Fallingwater, a spectacular three-story stone home dramatically suspended above a natural waterfall in the rugged Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. In this colorful 30-minute video you'll see unique original furnishings and the extensive art collection, all intact and in place.

    This home was built at a low point in Wright's career when he was generally thought of as an eccentric no longer in touch with the times. The brilliant design and execution of Fallingwater returned Wright to prominence as one of the world's premier architects.
  • Fallingwater and Pittsburgh (Wright Studies, Volume 2) paperback book cover
    Fallingwater and Pittsburgh
    (Wright Studies, Volume 2)
    (paperback)
    128 page paperback, richly illustrated, with seventy-three halftones and twenty-three line drawings.

    In this book, the authors concentrate on two themes: right’s interest in the imagery of water in architecture and Wright’s relationship with Edgar Kaufmann. It also analyzes the results—aesthetic and otherwise—of that relationship. The book covers Fallingwater and other projects planned for Pittsburgh, which included a planetarium, a civic center, a parking garage, and an apartment house.
  • Fallingwater and Pittsburgh (Wright Studies, Volume 2) hardcover book cover
    Fallingwater and Pittsburgh
    (Wright Studies, Volume 2)
    (hardcover)
    128 page hardcover, richly illustrated, with seventy-three halftones and twenty-three line drawings.

    In this book, the authors concentrate on two themes: right’s interest in the imagery of water in architecture and Wright’s relationship with Edgar Kaufmann. It also analyzes the results—aesthetic and otherwise—of that relationship. The book covers Fallingwater and other projects planned for Pittsburgh, which included a planetarium, a civic center, a parking garage, and an apartment house.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (The Building Blocks Series) book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's
    Fallingwater
    (The Building Blocks Series)
    This little book (measures 5 X 7 inches) contains 90 pages, of which the first 15 are text, the last 8 contain are drawings and plans of the house accompanied by explanations of the images, and the rest contain black and white photographs. Drawings and plans are shown by floor and give a good idea of the interior dining room, kitchen and terraces.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (Wright at a Glance Series) book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's
    Fallingwater
    (Wright at a Glance Series)
    60 pages, 31 color photographs, 4 black " white photographs, 5 1/4 x 5 1/4". Casebound with dust jacket.

    Probably the most famous modern house in America, Fallingwater—the Pennsylvania country home placed right over a waterfall—was Frank Lloyd Wright's greatest triumph. This book captures the spirit of this exceptional design, tracing its creation and construction as well as showing its breathtaking interior and exterior spaces.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater : The House and Its History book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's
    Fallingwater :
    The House and Its History
    116 page paperback with black and white photographs.

    This book features an introduction by Edgar Kaufman, Jr., son of the owner Edgar Kaufman, and is filled with details about the history and location of the house in Western Pennsylvania. Updated with valuable new material from the recently opened Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, the book gives special emphasis to Fallingwater's architectural innovations. The book includes preliminary drawings of the early phase of the project and letters written between Wright, Kaufman and the builder describing problems encountered during construction. Over one hundred photographs picture the construction and its exterior and interior detailing.
  • Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House book cover
    Fallingwater Rising
    Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House

    Architectural historian Toker approaches the building as a tense but fruitful collaboration between Wright's genius and the encouragement given it by his patron, Pittsburgh department store magnate Edgar. J. Kaufmann. He gives a detailed, sometimes hour-by-hour account of Wright's planning process, the engineering hurdles surmounted in realizing his structurally daring design, and its impact on American culture. The trenchant analysis of Wright's character and creativity, the often lyrical evocations of his buildings, and the opinionated but insightful overview of the modernist intellectual milieu of the 1930s make the book a wonderful exploration of the psychological and social meaning of architecture.
  • Fallingwater: The Model book cover
    Fallingwater: The Model
    This 80 page hardcover book is by Paul Bonfilio, who created a miniature reproduction of Fallingwater for the permanent collection of NYC's Museum of Modern Art. His painstaking narration, black-and-white photographs of each stage of the model's creation, and the excellent photographs of the real house all work together splendidly here. Anyone who ever found satisfaction in the process of assembling a model car or airplane will be completely absorbed by his quest to reproduce the diverse textures of Wright's masterpiece, from the complex stonework to the dazzling sheen of the waterfall over which the front of the structure so famously perches.

    This loving chronicle gets us to look at the house and its complex topography, its every elevation and surface, corner, and detail—as well as the choices, inspired and imprudent, that Wright made in designing it—with a fresh new eye.
  • Fallingwater: Wright and the 3rd Dimension (3 View-Master reels and viewer)
    Fallingwater: Wright and the 3rd Dimension
    (3 View-Master reels)
    [Includes viewer]
    Frank Lloyd Wright stated that "the only photograph that can be made of architecture is three-dimensional." This set of the first commercially available stereoscopic photographs of Wright's work capture the emotional experience of space, light and materials that characterize FallingwaterThe packet of 21 full-color three-dimension photographs on three View-Master reels contains interior, exterior and detail views, and notes describing Wright's interest in three-dimensional photography. This version includes a viewer.
  • Fallingwater: Wright and the 3rd Dimension (3 View-Master reels)
    Fallingwater: Wright and the 3rd Dimension
    (3 View-Master reels)
    [Does not include viewer]
    Frank Lloyd Wright stated that "the only photograph that can be made of architecture is three-dimensional." This set of the first commercially available stereoscopic photographs of Wright's work capture the emotional experience of space, light and materials that characterize FallingwaterThe packet of 21 full-color three-dimension photographs on three View-Master reels contains interior, exterior and detail views, and notes describing Wright's interest in three-dimensional photography. This version does not include a viewer.
  • LEGO Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater
    LEGO Fallingwater
    The LEGO Fallingwater contains 811 bricks, building instructions and extensive historic archival material and photographs. Builders of today or tomorrow can now construct Fallingwater in a LEGO replica. Length: 10" (256 mm). (Recommended ages 16+. Contains small parts. Not intended for children under 3 years.)
  • Fine Art Poster Print by Frank Lloyd Wright
    Fine Art Poster Print by Frank Lloyd Wright
    39" x 26"
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Fallingwater Pictures

The most popular view of Fallingwater
The most popular view of Fallingwater.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's treehouse at age 9
    A cartoon on the wall of an office on the second floor of the main house.
  • Fallingwater: Guest House back wall
    Guest House back wall. Note that the shelves have no visible means of support. A very clean look, especially when combined with the short wide windows along the ceiling.
  • Fallingwater: Entry fountain
    A fountain just to the right of the small main entrance to the house. There is a bar of soap hanging from the wall by a thin chain.
Small glass decoration in the Fallingwater guest house
Small glass decoration in the guest house (backlit).
Move your mouse over it to see a version taken with a flash (assuming that you have JavaScript enabled).
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