2. Falling water is a house that was built between 1936 and
1939 over a waterfall in southwest Pennsylvania. Frank
LloydWright, Americas most famous architect, designed
the house for his clients, the Kaufman family. It instantly
became famous, and today it is a National Historic
Landmark
It’s a House that does not even appear to stand on solid
ground, but instead stretches out over a 30’ waterfall. It
captures everyones imagination when it was on the cover
ofTime magazine in 1938
3. • The Kaufmanns was from Pittsburg, PA.They
owned Kaufmanns Department Store was
very Elegant place to shop in 1930s.Today it’s
a part of Macys chain
• The Kaufmanns lived in the City and loved to
vacation in the mountains.They could hike in
the forest, swim and fish in the streams,
horseback riding and many other activities.
• Pittsburg at that time was called the Smoky
City because of amount of pollution and
people who could afford the train to
mountains relished the chance to breathe cool
mountain air
4. • The Kaufmanns had a summer
camp for the department store
employees, located along a
mountain stream it was called Bear
Run
• When the Great Depression made
daily living so hard for so many
people, the employees no longer
had time or money to come up to
Kaufmanns Sumer Camp. But Mr
and Mrs. Kaufmann and their son
dearly loved the mountains, and
decided to make the summer
camp their own estate
• It had small cabins and no heat or
running water and they decided to
make it more modern
5. • The turned to Frank LloydWright to
design country house for them. At the
time their son was fascinated with
Wrights ideas and was even studying
with him atWrights School
• Kaufmanns was very interested in
modern art and design andWrights ideas
and they wanted him to design their new
vacation house
• They knew thatWright loved nature as
they did andWright knew that
Kaufmanns wanted something very
special at Bear Run, something that only
innovative like architect like himself
could design. He also knew that they
loved the waterfall, and he decided to
make it part of the new house
6. • When the Kaufmanns first looked at
Wrights drawing they were very surprised!
They thought their new house would have
a wonderful view of the falls. But instead,
with the house right on top of the falls, it
was very difficult to even see them. But
not to hear them.
• Frank Lloyd Wright told them that he
wanted them to live with the waterfalls, to
make them part of their everyday life and
not just to look at them now and then
• Wright be lived in designing structures
that were in harmony with humanity and
its environment a philosophy he called
organic architecture
