He designed a house on the side of a hill jutting out over a waterfall which hid the waterfall. The house was extremely damp but it was and remains a masterpiece of architectural design. It is said of Fallingwater that no other house has anywhere the connection with nature of “Fallingwater”. The owner was appalled that Wright designed the house on the “wrong” side of the stream but went along with Wright. He bought a masterwork worthy of Michelangelo. Falllingwater is that great.
It has sound. Wright put the house where the sound of the fallingwater is a large part of the charm of the design and provides evidence of the brilliance of Wright. How many buildings come with sound? Fallingwater certainly does and the sound is the name: Falling water.

Yes, it is a damp house because of the stream but dehumidification is rather simple these days with air conditioning in the summer and depending on the type of heating used in the winter the humidity can be completely controlled.
How expensive was the house to design and build? Very. It was worth the money and the owner, Kaufman had plenty. He even had an engineering complay study the design and it was found to be inadequate so Kaufman sent the engineering drawings to Wright who apparently rejected the additional reinforcement so Kaufman had it installed secretely and even the additional reinforcement was insufficient to keep the deflections down. It was strengthened during the recent renovations.
Also, it’s not “connected with hature” as it is so often said. First of all, nature abhors straight lines, at least in the woods where the trees caren’t straight. Next, it is nad of man-made materials by men who purposely constructed it. Nature doesn’t work like that, even with evolution and the sort of predestination that seeds use to grow and reproduce. It’s not, in those senses at all natural.
In the sense of the supreme capability of man, of people to consciously use and change so-called natural things there is a naturalness about Fallingwater. That’s what architects do. they use nature and that’s part of the natural nature of things.
Anyhow, it’s a circular argument that one can use to suit one’s purposes and so rather meaningless. the fact of Fallingwater is a testement to humans everywhere and it’s a spectacular achievement. . 

 

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