Cardus Edição 49, 01-02-2018

Falling Water, Pennsylvania USA

Have you ever wondered why Falling Water, one of the cornerstones of modern architecture, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, incorporates a huge Guest House on the estate?

I visited the Falling Water in April 2005. At the time I had never heard someone mentioning the architectural importance of the Guest House, located top of the hill, not far from the main house. I wasn’t allowed in the Guest House as the architecture, according to our guide, ‘is of no interest’. It was added to the estate at a later stage.

However, after visiting the Falling Water I realized that we should talk less about the Falling Water and more about the Guest House, hence this post.

The Falling Water, shown above, has inspired a generation of architects to design buildings more connected with Nature. In fact when I finished high school and was going through the final exams to enter university, the Falling Water was the building I picked to talk about at a mandatory interview required by the University of Architecture. When the lecturer asked me why I thought the Falling Water blended so well with nature I mentioned the terraces that expand like tree branches; and after seeing the house in loco I still think the terraces stretch out beautifully.

I admit, despite being erected more than 85 years ago the Falling Water is still a beautiful building. Personally, I felt the low ceiling in the living room made de room slightly claustrophobic, and the stone flooring was not quite what I would expect to see in a modern building, but apart from that the Falling Water had a lot more going for it. I confess I never imagined that the house was so expensive to maintain, but what surprised me the most was to notice how noisy it was.

The falling water underneath the building is a famous design feature, but no one appears interested in discussing how noisy this feature really is. The noise level is something that the zillion pictures taken of the house have never been able to capture. The noise goes on day and night. It is not like a mad neighbour’s party that eventually finishes at the break of dawn. The water keeps splashing 7/24. The house is certainly not an easy place to sleep and I suspect the owners commissioned the Guest House later as a solution to this problem.

Building houses on top of waterfalls is probably one of those design ideas that makes people say, ‘waw, that’s so awesome,’ but in the particular case of the Falling Water this probably the wrong thing to do if you value a good night sleep.

I often think that the purpose of buildings is to protect us from the Nature around us; I suspect for the owners of the Falling Water, under the current circumstances, the Guest House was a great architectural achievement too.

Helder Cardeira