Fallingwater

Fallingwater or Kaufmann Residence is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, 43 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The home was built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run in the Mill Run section of Stewart Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains. Hailed by Time shortly after its completion as Wright’s “most beautiful job”, it is listed among Smithsonian’s Life List of 28 places “to visit before you die.” It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. In 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects named the house the “best all-time work of American architecture” and in 2007, it was ranked twenty-ninth on the list of America’s Favorite Architecture according to the AIA. The purpose of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s operation of Fallingwater is:to preserve, maintain and make available for public education and appreciation Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater- to demonstrate by the example of Fallingwater the powerful result that can be achieved through the harmonious union of man’s work with nature-to maintain in Fallingwater its character as a weekend home of the period it was occupied by its owners, Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann (occupied 1937 to 1955) and their son, Edgar Kaufmann, jr. (occupied 1937 to 1963)-to preserve its original furnishings, art and household objects, exhibiting them as naturally as possible in what is now a public museum-to conserve the land and watershed into which Fallingwater was designed to fit, as a continuing source of inspiration through a 5000 acre nature reserve intended for both recreation and study. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy believes that Fallingwater is more than the sum of its parts: the architect, the client, the architecture, the art, the land and the period.  It is the inspired coming together of these parts that makes Fallingwater a great work worthy of preservation. Fallingwater works closely with other local, regional, and national institutions and organizations including but not limited to: The Pennsylvania Federation of Museums; The Pennsylvania Coalition of Independent Museums; Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; Laurel Highlands Visitors Bureau; Visit Pittsburgh; the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance; the Pennsylvania Department of Tourism; and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. For more information plase visit: FallingWater.org