Visiting Falling Water

On Saturday, September 28, 1996, my wife and I took a day trip up to Pennsylvania to see FrankLloydWright's FallingWater house (it was built on top of a waterfall and is considered by the AIA to be one of the greatest examples of modern architecture). It was a grand, beautiful, inspiring work of art, but it failed as good architecture. Perhaps, we can learn some lessons here.

A few notes:

Floors

The floors were uneven. Since it was made from the stone of the waterfall, he thought that a rough floor of cut stone would make the house more organic. It made it more difficult to balance 4 legged chairs in some areas of the rooms. Therefore, the dining room table is surrounded by chairs, chosen by the owners of the house, with 3 legs each.

Fireplace

Some were too small to be functional. The main fireplace, which Wright forced as the centerpiece to the living room. (The living room, dining room and study consisted of one large room. No privacy.) The fireplace itself is quite stunning. Off to the left was a cherokee red kettle (cherokee red was Wright's favorite color --- the house is full of it even though the owners didn't care for it). The kettle was meant to be filled with cider and the flames from the fireplace would warm it for supper. At best, it would take 10 hours for the kettle to warm. The owners eventually used it as more of a conversational piece.

Wright Chairs

Wright had a fondness for a barrel shaped chair design. Unfortunately, these chairs, while elegant, were highly uncomfortable and didn't balance well on the uneven floors. The owners of the house left one barrel chair in the guest room (where Wright often stayed when he visited).

Forced Room Layouts

Don't change a Wright room. He had very particular arrangements that had to be kept. All of the bedrooms had the bed's headboards built into the wall. He didn't want the owners changing the location of the beds.

Leaks

Yes, the house leaked. The most striking leak was a natural rock wall that flanked one side of the waterfall. When pointed out that water seeps through, Wright simply placed a drain in the floor.

Overall

There were quite a few innovative and clever things about the house, but unfortunately, as a whole, it was more a work of art than of architecture. It wasn't very livable. The customer was at the mercy of the great architect. He constantly fought with the customer on the features of the house. They eventually made changes, but the house (and Wright) fought many of them. This building certainly could not learn or grow. Can we learn anything from this that will help us with software architecture?

-- ToddCoram

If you like thinking in this vein, I'd recommend the book HowBuildingsLearn by StewartBrand (the WholeEarth? fellow). It's published by Viking, 1994. Questions like Todd's are exactly the focus of the book.

-- DonDwiggins

I have a lot of sympathy for the aims of the architect. Uneven floors and leaky rooms - sometimes it's good that reality intrudes. It reminds us of our place in the world. It reminds us we're alive.

WabiSabi?

One of my dreams is to live on an occasional island. There's one about a mile from where I live - you can walk to it with dry feet for about 4 hours a tide, the rest of the time it's cut off (and dangerous to swim to). In a place like that, you would have to learn to accommodate nature. Sometimes you would have to wait. (I guess I'm not managing to explain why this is a good thing.)

I imagine the house is partly an act of rebellion against too-perfect homes. This would explain why current software shouldn't be like that - none of it is good enough to rebel against. The closest equivalent I can think of is those Japanese key-ring electronic pets. As I understand it, they have to be cared for all the time, or they "die". They're very intrusive and will interrupt meetings and so on. Of course, real pets are intrusive too - that's the point. I prefer cats to dogs. I don't want a devoted slave. -- DaveHarris

I've visited a number of Wright homes and buildings. They are always interesting, sometimes beautiful. None of them look like a place to live. They are discernibly his: you couldn't make them your own. Most of them would be impossible to clean. I've known software developers who built systems like that. Maybe I've even been one. I'm striving never to be again. -- RonJeffries

Frankly, this sounds exactly like some software development organizations - the lead developer/designer bulldozing his/her ideas down the throats of the development team, the customers, etc.

In architecture, this seems an occupational hazard. I've seen lots of buildings with really bad public spaces, both in appearance and usability, that were the embodiment of the architects ideal. HGTV's Extreme Homes has quite a few architect guests that show signs of this trait. -- Pete Hardie

I never got what everyone sees in Wright's stuff. As has been pointed out several times here - beautiful to look at, horrible to live in. I think RichardNeutra? was headed in the right direction, but never got the credit he deserved. -- MikeSmith

The first owner called the place Rising Mildew. The leakage was pervasive and having concrete over water, porous as it is, made it a damp place. The cantilevered design was striking, but was unsound from an engineering standpoint. The cantilevered balcony cracked as soon as the forms were removed. Structural analysis showed it ended up being supported by the steel posts that were only supposed to hold the windows on the floor below. A reinforcement project involving installing steel cables was used to correct the defect recently. -- Stephen Holland