Falling Water

So I had the chance to visit the famous Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright in Pennsylvania. I've always heard about this great architectural feat, but didn't think I would be in the area to ever see it.  Good thing my best friend got a job at the University of West Virginia recently, and I had the excuse to go visit.

Unfortunately, since it's winter, the inside was closed from tours.  The grounds are open, however. So I got a chance to check out the outside.

The story goes, the Kaufmann's asked Wright to build them a summer cottage back in the 1930's. The Kaufmann's were the local grocery store chain owners, and were obviously well off enough, that this enormous place could be commissioned for construction by a famous architect, and still be called a "summer cottage".  Much like those mansions in Lenox out the Berkshires. But that's another story.

It is very beautiful to see. Though the interaction designer in me shuttered at various things. 

For one, though it's "neat" to build a home "on top" of running water (the original request was simply to have a view of the creek), it just seems to position itself for future problems.

In this particular case, the idea of being able to walk straight down into the creek is certainly nice, but there's no where to go. It's not deep enough for someone to bring a boat around. The bottom isn't smooth enough to sit in. So I guess you can wade it to calf deep water, and then wade out. Perhaps dangle your feet over the edge into the water at the bottom of those steps. But that seems to be it. Seems like a lot of effort for not that much enjoyment.

Another major issue is that apparently Wright didn't believe in drainage. That's right, drainage. Seems kind of important. So the builders somehow negotiated these gutters so that some drainage can happen.

The net results is there's giant icicles waiting to impale passers by.  It's rather alarming really, that an architect can simply "not believe in drainage", therefore not design in any, and then the builders had to negotiate them in. 

Makes me think of how sometimes things look really good from a high level power point presentation, but when you get to the details, some pretty important elements are missing. And often times executives are totally bought in to the high level concept animated out in power point, but fail to understand more detailed work is necessary before you can really call it a complete design. 

Otherwise, you would just end up in situations like this, where the design failed to account for drainage, and the builders had to work it in some other way. And ultimately, I can't imagine this is desirable. If Wright had actually designed with drainage in mind, I'm sure there would have been ways to deal with it where it doesn't form dangerous daggers over head of passersby.