Fallingwater

Fallingwater is situated in Stewart Township in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania, United States, about southeast of Pittsburgh. The house is located near Pennsylvania Route 381 (PA 381), It is variously cited as being either in Bear Run, the stream that runs below the house, or in Mill Run, though the building's deeds give the locale as Stewart Township. Nearby are the Bear Run Natural Area to the north, as well as Ohiopyle State Park and Fort Necessity National Battlefield to the south. The nearest city is Uniontown, to the west. as well as Duncan House and Lindholm House at Polymath Park in Acme, Pennsylvania. Geography and structures Fallingwater is named for the location of the main house, which is oriented roughly south-southeast. It sits above the Bear Run stream, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River, which has an upper falls about high (where the main house is situated) and a lower falls about high. At the house, Bear Run is above sea level; contrary to common perceptions, it does not pass through the house. There is a layer of buff and gray sandstone under the site, which is part of the Pottsville Formation. In contrast to other country estates, Fallingwater is not located on a geographically prominent site and is not easily visible. Canopy cover from the surrounding forest hangs above the house. The guest wing, an "L"-shaped building, is connected to the main house by a curved outdoor walkway (see ). The grounds include a small mausoleum for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann, which has doors designed by Alberto Giacometti. Edgar Jr. was cremated after his death, and his ashes are spread around the house. Wright designed a set of gates for the house's driveway, though these were never installed. it weighed and measured across. Previous site usage In the 1890s, a freemasonry group from Pittsburgh developed a country club on a plot of land that includes the Fallingwater site. By 1909, this clubhouse had been acquired by another group of masons who turned it into the Syria Country Club. The club went bankrupt in 1913. A map from that year shows that the grounds included the clubhouse, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Bear Run station, and 13 other buildings (none of which are extant). One of the structures was a cottage on the site of Fallingwater's guest wing, while the clubhouse was about to the southeast. Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the president of Kaufmann's Department Store in Pittsburgh, had established a summer retreat at Bear Run for his employees by 1916. Up to one thousand employees used the retreat each summer. In 1922, Edgar and his wife Liliane built a simple summer cabin on a nearby cliff, which was nicknamed the "Hangover" and lacked electricity, plumbing, or heating. The Kaufmanns' permanent residence, at the time, was La Tourelle in Fox Chapel. Kaufmann's employees eventually bought the Bear Run site in 1926, the Kaufmann family bought the site in July 1933. == Development ==

Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann became familiar with Wright's work through their only child, Edgar Kaufmann Jr.. The younger Edgar had studied in Europe under the artist Victor Hammer from 1930 to 1933. After returning to the United States, in September 1934, Edgar Jr. traveled to Wright's Wisconsin studio, Taliesin, and began apprenticing under Wright. Edgar Jr.'s parents met with Wright that November while visiting their son. The architectural historian Paul Goldberger credits Edgar Jr. as the second-most influential figure in Fallingwater's development, behind Wright himself. Planning Fallingwater was one of three major buildings that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in the 1930s, along with the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin, and Herbert Jacobs's first house in Madison, Wisconsin. When Wright was hired as Fallingwater's architect in late 1934, he was 67 years old, Wright wanted to select a site "that has features making for character", and Edgar Jr. recalled that when Wright visited Bear Run, he had been excited by the landscape he had seen. The Kaufmanns wanted Wright to design a building set far back from the road. His team drew up models of the house and site in Arizona, and Wright asked the Kaufmanns to list every tree species on the site. A map of the site's boulders, trees, and topography was completed and forwarded to Wright on March 9, 1935. The Kaufmanns asked Wright to include a large living–dining space, at least three bedrooms, a dressing room, and a guest and servant wing. Wright's apprentices Edgar Tafel and Robert Mosher were the most heavily involved in the building's design, while his employees Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters were the structural engineers. Wright postponed his sketches for Kaufmann's country home while designing another project for Kaufmann. Concurrently, Wright continued to formulate plans for the house's orientation, materials, and general shape and size. Edgar Sr. called Wright on September 22, 1935, to inform the architect that he would visit Taliesin. Wright's apprentices disagree on what exactly happened next, but the sketches were complete when Edgar Sr. arrived two hours later. Contrary to common claims that Wright had ignored the design for nine months before hurriedly sketching it, he had already devised the plans mentally and had written about them to Edgar Sr. multiple times. Wright's plan called for a structure with exposed cantilevers. The house was to be placed on Bear Run's northern bank, oriented 30 degrees counterclockwise from due south, so that every room would receive natural light. It also included terraces that resembled rock ledges. This meant that the house would have faced north, with suboptimal amounts of natural light, As he explained to Edgar Sr.: "I want you to live with the waterfall, not to look at it." Wright sent preliminary plans to Edgar Sr. for approval on October 15, 1935, after which Wright visited the site again. The Kaufmanns were impressed with the design, which Wright continued to work on. By January 1936, Wright's team had completed detailed drawings, The next month, Wright's team sent the plans to Edgar Sr. for review, and workers began building a sample wall. citing at least eight structural issues. though Edgar Sr. is known to have kept a copy of the report. By early 1937, Wright's team was on its eighth set of drawings. In the final plans, Wright added a third floor and rearranged some rooms. Construction Edgar Sr. wrote that he constantly thought about the house, "which has become part of me and a part of my life". Wright visited every four to six weeks, appointing Mosher as his on-site representative. Hall's former employee Earl Friar was hired as a reinforced-concrete consultant. and several Kaufmann's employees and extended family members also worked on site. Work was carried out by local laborers, many of whom were inexperienced; they were paid between 35 and 85 cents an hour depending on their skill level. The project was characterized by conflicts between Wright, Kaufmann, and the contractors, Due to Hall's careless attitude and clumsiness, Mosher ended up supervising most of the work. During a visit to the site shortly afterward, Mosher inquired where the main level of the house would be located, and Wright directed Mosher to use one of the boulders on site as a datum reference. By June 1936, workers had completed the access bridge and the footers for three of the house's "bolsters", or piers. However, Mosher ordered that the bolsters be rebuilt after receiving revised plans from Taliesin. Workers began pouring concrete formwork for the first-floor terrace in August 1936, and masonry work reached the second story that month. As the first-floor terrace was being poured, Kaufmann asked the engineering firm Metzger-Richardson to draw up plans for extra rebar to the concrete. Wright rejected these plans because he believed the extra steel would overload the terraces, and he also dismissed the idea of constructing additional supports in Bear Run's streambed. Contractors secretly added the rebar anyway, Wright wrote angrily to Kaufmann: "I have put so much more into this house than you or any other client has a right to expect, that if I don't have your confidence—to hell with the whole thing". Despite Kaufmann's expressions of confidence in Wright's work, the extra steel remained in place. and Tafel replaced Mosher as the construction supervisor afterward. The contractors neglected to incline the formwork slightly to account for settling and deflection. Soon after the concrete was poured, the parapet cracked at two locations. Once the formwork was removed, the first-floor terrace sank about . and he drew up plans to reinforce the western second-floor terrace and the roof above the eastern second-floor bedroom. Meanwhile, structural issues continued to arise: By December 1936, five major cracks had been detected. Mosher was reinstated as the project's supervisor, and Kaufmann's engineer installed a stone wall under the western second-floor terrace in January 1937. When Wright discovered the wall, he had Mosher remove the top course of stones; the wall was later disassembled entirely. Completion , manufactured the window sashes and the hatch for the living-room stairs, while Pittsburgh Plate Glass made the windows themselves. it is unclear whether Wright had made his suggestion jokingly or seriously. In either case, Edgar Sr. hired a gold-leaf contractor, who rejected the idea, Wright reportedly decided on the final color, a shade of ocher, after picking up a dried rhododendron leaf; he ordered waterproof paint from DuPont. In addition, the contractors refined plans for details such as the paint colors and metalwork. The cork tiles in the bathrooms were particularly problematic, since they had to be installed on curved surfaces. Wright hired the Wisconsin–based Gillen Woodworking Corporation to produce furniture for the house. The Kaufmanns moved into the house in November 1937, Wright came up with the Fallingwater name around the same time; Even though some other American country estates (such as Biltmore, Monticello, or Mount Vernon) also used nicknames, the Kaufmanns did not use the Fallingwater name. Wright began drawing out plans for a guest wing, replacing an existing cottage on a hill behind the main house. Wright had completed blueprints for the guest wing by May 1938, but the Kaufmanns initially objected to the interior layout and the bridge between the main and guest wings. After Wright presented final plans for the guest wing in April 1939, Edgar Jr. modified the main house's decorations and furnishings. By that September, the guest wing was being finished. Fallingwater exceeded its budget significantly. The final cost for the home and guest house was $155,000 (equivalent to about $ million in ). The total cost was nearly four times Kaufmann's original budget, which in turn was ten times the average cost of a four-bedroom house in Pennsylvania at the time. From 1938 through 1941, more than $22,000 was spent on additional details and modifications. == Use as house ==

Early years The Kaufmann family used Fallingwater as a weekend home for 26 years. Relatively few changes occurred after the guest wing was completed. The Kaufmanns sometimes invited small numbers of people to Fallingwater. It hosted guests such as the artists Diego Rivera and Pablo Picasso, Over the years, the family also added artwork. Part of the Kaufmanns' Bear Run estate caught fire in 1941, although the house itself was undamaged. The estate's dairy barn burned down in 1945, but the main house again avoided damage. Fallingwater showed signs of deterioration after its completion. Contravening his own surveyor's advice, Edgar Sr. did not expand the wall under the western terrace. The terraces were surveyed 16 more times between 1945 and 1955. Despite subsequent repairs to the parapet, the cracks there periodically reappeared. Wright expanded the kitchen in 1946, and he drew up plans for never-built expansions of the dining area and foyer. In 1950, and again in 1953, workers installed posts under the second floor to prevent it from sagging. Edgar Sr. observed that some windows had begun to crack and that some of the doors no longer opened easily. Liliane died in 1952, and her husband died three years later. Edgar Jr. continued to use the house after his parents died. and instead had his chief of maintenance monitor the terraces. Edgar Jr. abandoned the estate's farm and mill, planting 100,000 pine trees there, The eastern section of the house's roof was rebuilt in 1954. The living room was flooded during a storm two years later; while the furniture was severely damaged, the house experienced no structural damage. By then, the sagging terraces had caused the window frames to warp, and workers had to add supports to the terraces, repair the roof, and rebuild the staircase between the living room and Bear Run. Jesse Hall retired as Fallingwater's superintendent in 1959. == Use as museum ==

1960s and 1970s Edgar Kaufmann Jr. announced in September 1963 that he would donate the house and about to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC). In exchange, the WPC agreed to open the house to the public as a house museum. with a speech by Pennsylvania governor William Scranton. Edgar Jr. gave the WPC $500,000 for the house's maintenance, as well as five annual payments of $30,000 for educational programs. The museum was dedicated in memory of Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann. In subsequent years, the WPC's holdings were expanded to , becoming the Bear Run Natural Area. Guided tours began in July 1964, running from April to November of each year. Visitors were allowed to enter most of the rooms but had to reserve tickets in advance. Edgar Jr. remained involved with the WPC and Fallingwater for the rest of his life, visiting the house twice annually until his death in 1989. The house began hosting scholars-in-residence during 1967, and Edward A. Robinson was appointed as the museum's supervisor in 1970. WPC members received free admission twice annually starting in 1973. The facade was repainted in mid-1972, and the WPC added a gift shop to the museum next year. and it hired the landscape architect William G. Swain to design renovations to the property. The conservancy constructed new paths, repaved the existing trails with dark gravel, and added a small crafts store. Mildew and repeated freeze-and-thaw cycles had caused damage over time. The visitor pavilion was still being developed by 1977; the new structure was to contain a shop, reception center, and child-care center. The original pavilion, designed by Grant Curry Jr., opened in April 1979 and burned down two days later. 1980s and early 1990s The WPC rebuilt the visitor pavilion, obtaining an $800,000 grant from the Edgar J. Kaufmann Foundation. The conservancy hired the architect Paul Mayén, along with Curry, Martin & Highberger to redesign the pavilion. The pavilion partially reopened in July 1980 and was rededicated in June 1981. The WPC began hosting limited wintertime tours in January 1984. By then, the museum's annual expenses amounted to $400,000; despite high visitation, the WPC was breaking even. later being promoted to director. The organization restored 182 pieces of furniture for the house's 50th anniversary, and it hired a contractor from Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, to add waterproofing. The woodwork and terraces were also repaired, and the windows were replaced. The house was vulnerable to water damage because the site was always humid. Even though most of the leaks had been repaired, rain and snow still pooled on the terraces and roof, tilting almost two degrees. Waggoner also planned to repaint the house, which was complicated by strict environmental regulations regarding Bear Run. Silman's company confirmed that the terraces' cracks were growing. Though Silman's computer models also indicated that the terraces were at risk of collapsing, the WPC's chief executive, Larry Schweiger, said the terraces were not in danger of collapse. Workers installed temporary girders in 1997 at a cost of $140,000. The girders were intended to help relieve stresses on the cantilevers. The WPC cut out a section of the floor, adding a glass opening; the living room's sofa was removed as well. Temporary footings were installed in the streambed, Silman devised plans to post-tension the slabs by pulling high-strength steel cables through the beams. The idea of jacking up the house was deemed infeasible because it would have exacerbated the cracks. Additionally, Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge provided $3.5 million, and private donors provided another $7.2 million. Work began in late 2001, at which point the restoration was estimated to cost $11.5 million. The outer end of the first-floor terrace was raised by approximately . The post-tensioning phase cost about $4 million and was completed in six months. the post-tensioning prevented further damage to the terraces. Workers relocated some outbuildings and replaced the visitor center's sewage system. The house was connected to a municipal water system for the first time. the next year, the entrance roadways were reconfigured, and the sewage system was finished. Mid-2000s to present After the renovation was completed in 2005, the WPC began removing invasive species from the Fallingwater grounds that year. Additionally, the WPC replaced 319 windows at the house after PPG Industries donated glass panes in 2010. The WPC hired a firm from Peekskill, New York, to help restore the windows. In the mid-2010s, one of Fallingwater's volunteer landscapers created a pottery terrace in one of the house's planters. One of the statues on the grounds was toppled and damaged during a rainstorm in 2017, and some trees were damaged as well. Waggoner announced in 2017 that she would retire as the museum's director, and Justin W. Gunther was appointed to replace her. After becoming Fallingwater's director, Gunther devised plans for a $3 million waterproofing project, which was supposed to have begun in 2019. The museum was temporarily closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania; the outdoor spaces reopened for self-guided tours that June. The same September, the Pennsylvania government gave Fallingwater nearly $240,000 to offset financial losses from the pandemic. Meanwhile, the cost of the waterproofing project doubled due to the pandemic. The WPC started patching the leaks in 2025, and scaffolding was placed around the house, which remained open for tours during the repairs. The project was complete by March 2026, when the scaffolding was removed. == Architecture ==

Fallingwater has been described as an example of Wright's organic architecture. Though the house is also sometimes described as a Modern-styled building, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the design was "a kind of streamlined, handmade, organic architecture" not emulated by other architects. Fallingwater's design shares elements with Wright's earlier Prairie houses and his later Usonian houses. Elements such as trellises are derived from Italian architecture, while the kitchen is inspired by New England colonial architecture. and the cantilevers resemble those in three structures designed by Rudolph Schindler. Wright tried to preserve natural features; for example, he installed braces and trellises around existing trees. The main house is three stories high. Wright sought to blur the distinction between the exterior and interior, using the same materials indoors and outdoors. He also wanted breezes to be felt, and the waterfalls to be heard, throughout the house. All the woodwork in the house is made of black walnut from North Carolina, which was selected because it did not warp as other types of wood did. Several of the design features—including the corner windows, foam-rubber seats, and indirect lighting—were uncommon when Fallingwater was completed. Exterior The facade uses three colors: gray for the sandstone, a light-ocher "dead rhododendron" color for the concrete, and Cherokee red for the steel. Red was used because Wright believed that the hue was an "invincible" color of life and because it was the color of burning metal. The house's windows have metal casings, The roof has rolled edges and is covered with beige gravel, blending in with the color of the facade. The house's chimney is covered in striated sandstone Heading north from the bridge, the pathway curves to the west. The entrance is reached via a driveway with horizontal trellises overhead, which doubles as a porte-cochère. where the Kaufmanns could wash their feet after going into Bear Run. Terraces Fallingwater has many cantilevered terraces, The parapets are high, much shorter than what is allowed under modern building codes. and to a treehouse. The horizontal axes of the terraces also contrasts with the vertical axis of the darker-gray chimney. Above the grid are wooden planks, which are covered by the living room's stone floor tiles. Each of the bedrooms has its own outdoor terrace. The terrace was missing rebar at key points, On the western side of the house, there is another terrace above the second floor, The second floor's eastern terrace, serving the guest bedroom, is the only one in the house with a canopy. Interior Fallingwater's asymmetrical floor plan was loosely derived from the cruciform plan of the Prairie houses. one source described the interiors as "spaces of varying sizes and shapes that seem to flow from one to the other". Wright also shrank the bedrooms to encourage occupants to use the terrace. Wright, who was tall, designed the house based on the assumption that the average person was his height, so some ceilings are as low as . The highest ceilings are . Although the first story is wheelchair-accessible, the other stories are not, Interior decorations, including lights with dentils and shields, were intended to contrast with the exterior design. Wright placed the house's toilets about above the floor, and he ordered industrial-sized shower heads to make visitors feel like they were under a waterfall. The bolsters divide the house into four bays from west to east, each of which measures wide. The living area occupies the center two bays. A niche on one wall was intended as a music area. another niche includes a fireplace, whose hearth is made of boulders from the site. In front of the fireplace, a boulder protrudes from the floor. The eastern wall has a small library. Two stone piers, in the middle of the room, support a coved ceiling. The living area also has a glass-enclosed hatch, Despite Edgar Sr.'s doubts about the hatch, Wright and Edgar Jr. had insisted that the stair was "absolutely necessary from every standpoint". except the lowest steps, which are beneath a semicircular lightwell. The Kaufmanns kept the hatch open during the summer. one writer described it as having a cave-like atmosphere. There is a dressing room above the kitchen, and is covered by a terrace. The third story's concrete floor slab is folded for additional strength. The study's fireplace mantel is made of red stone from the site. Liliane used the third-story terrace as a roof garden with herbs. but instead functioned as a bedroom for Edgar Jr. The walkway runs underneath a stepped concrete canopy, supported by steel posts along one side. The lounge has a stone fireplace mantel, and a bench that doubles as a bed. The adjoining guest room is adjacent to an outdoor swimming pool. The guest pool, measuring long The guest wing's bathroom has a mirror designed by Edgar Jr. The carport and guest wing are connected by a chimney and recessed stair. There are three bedrooms and a bathroom above the carport, which are used by staff. These rooms contain the same finishes as the main house. Extending southeast of the guest wing is a terrace with a cantilevered canopy. A garage on the upper story was designed in 1947 but not built. == Collection ==

Fallingwater's collection includes over 1,000 objects. Until the 2000s renovation, the house had no air conditioning or curtains. This, along with high humidity and high levels of ultraviolet light, has made the collection particularly vulnerable to damage. Many objects have walnut finishes to prevent moisture buildups, and many of the walls have wooden shelves and trim. The WPC owns the trademarks to the pieces of furniture that Wright designed. The living room's expandable dining table, which could seat about 18 people, has rounded cutouts to accommodate the corner windows, which swing inward. The house also has wooden radiator cases, Most of the Kaufmanns' furnishings remain in place, The Kaufmanns occasionally rejected some of Wright's suggested decorations and furnishings. For instance, Edgar Sr. refused Wright's designs for custom rugs, floor lamps, and chairs. The Kaufmanns, unhappy with Wright's original barrel-shaped seats, bought three-legged stools, which provided more stability on the irregular stone floors. and shelves were installed across the living room's windows. In another case, a local newspaper described a rumor that the Kaufmans hid a set of tables whenever Wright came over, because he disliked them. The rest of Fallingwater's art was selected by the Kaufmanns, who liked collecting art from a variety of cultures. During visits to the house, Wright sometimes recommended artwork for the Kaufmanns to acquire. while Edgar Sr.'s room includes two busts by Richmond Barthé. One of the house's original artworks, The Horseman by Marino Marini, was destroyed in a 1956 flood. The outbuildings and grounds have other pieces of art. The guesthouse includes woodblock prints and an 1877 landscape painting by José María Velasco Gómez, while the guest wing's pool has an abstract sculpture by Peter Voulkos. The grounds also contain three sculptures by Mardonio Magaña, and there are also items such as a Hindu god's head and a Buddha statue. Other artworks included a silk screen by Marcel Duchamp. After the WPC took over Fallingwater, the collection was expanded with murals and sculptures by Picasso, Lyonel Feininger, Luisa Rota, and Bryan Hunt. Edgar Jr. also donated some of his own books to the museum. == Management ==

Tours and programs The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy maintains Fallingwater, as well as the Bear Run Natural Area surrounding it. The WPC hosts tours of the house, In addition, during December, there are tours on weekends and during the last week of the year. Every year in late August, the WPC hosts a "twilight tour" in which visitors can go on self-guided tours before attending a picnic and concert at sunset. The conservancy operates the visitor pavilion. Young children, who cannot tour the house, stay at the visitor pavilion's child-care center. these include chairs, coffee tables, and desks. Additionally, in the 2000s, the WPC sold jewelry with pieces of concrete that were removed from Fallingwater during its restoration. During the Christmas and holiday season, the Fallingwater Museum Store operates a temporary outpost in Downtown Pittsburgh. The WPC operates several educational programs for students and teachers as well. Attendance In its first two years as a museum, Fallingwater had 117,000 visitors from 66 countries and nearly every U.S. state. Initially, the busiest months for the house were September and October, in part because people came to see the foliage during the autumn. The house accommodated 250,000 total visitors during the 1960s, and Fallingwater recorded a lifetime attendance of more than half a million by 1975, when it accommodated 62,000 visitors per year. A 2022 article from ''The Architect's Newspaper'' wrote that Fallingwater had seen 5 million visitors ever since its opening. == Impact ==

Fallingwater was one of the world's most-heavily-discussed modern–style structures by the 1960s, Alice T. Friedman said in 1998 that Fallingwater was one of a few 20th-century residences, along with the Farnsworth House and Villa Savoye, which consistently captivated visitors despite being widely covered in the media. Another writer for Curbed grouped Fallingwater and the Farnsworth House with Philip Johnson's Glass House and Eero Saarinen's Miller House as American modernist icons, "glorified in equal part by architecture geeks and tourists". Though it is unknown whether Wright had an active role in publicizing Fallingwater, its fame helped revitalize Wright's career. Reception Mid-20th century Upon Fallingwater's completion, it received near-universal praise from American media publications as diverse as New Masses and Town & Country. A writer for The Christian Science Monitor in 1938 wrote that the use of contrasting materials, shapes, and tones "add so much enchantment to the interior", Town & Country likened the horizontal terraces to an airplane and described the house as "solid and sensible [...] aerated with imagination, with the spirit of the woods". Fallingwater was even praised by critics who disliked modern architecture, such as Talbot Hamlin, Only two architecture magazines—Charette and The Federal Architect—are known to have reviewed the house negatively upon its completion. For Fallingwater's design, Wright received a silver medal from the Pan-American Congress of Architects in 1940. The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph wrote in 1941 that Fallingwater "was for several years the prime example of modernism". Olgivanna Wright regarded Fallingwater as "the most dramatic home my husband designed", saying that the house was the only Wright–designed building that many people could name. Nearly two decades after the house's completion, The Baltimore Sun described Fallingwater as "a handsome and daring house" in its own way but a "monumental profanity" with relation to the natural setting. When the house was turned over to the WPC, a writer for the Pittsburgh Press described the home as having a "deeper beauty". The Patriot-News said that Fallingwater retained the character of a mountain lodge, The New York Times described Fallingwater in 1991 as "probably the most widely acclaimed modern residence in America". A writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer observed that the house was unusually cozy for a modern–styled house and that the rooms were not "pretentious, grand or even luxurious". A New York Times writer and Edwin Heathcote of the Financial Times both described Fallingwater as a rejoinder to the Bauhaus movement, while a writer for the National Post characterized the house as a summary of Wright's design philosophy. and the art historian Vincent Scully called it "one of the complete masterpieces of twentieth-century art". Several critics have written about the house's relationship with nature. For example, writers for the Indiana Gazette and The Washington Post described the house as interpreting and adapting to its surroundings and to nature. Another writer for The Globe and Mail said that the house was "abstract, bold, intellectually rigorous, formally unnatural", counterbalancing its surroundings. Smithsonian magazine said that the house "evokes the American desire to exalt nature and dominate it, to claim modernity and reject it", Not all commentary was positive. In 1997, The Baltimore Sun wrote that the house "reeks of the architect's arrogance, from the low ceilings (Wright himself was short) to the uneven floors" and questioned whether the house's high maintenance costs were worth it. William Thorsell wrote for The Globe and Mail that the house "turns its back to the landscape" and that the terrace parapets, the built-in furniture, and the use of rock and dark wood gave the house "a basement feeling". Thorsell felt that the house was in the wrong place because the waterfall, the site's primary attraction, could not readily be seen from the house itself. The first newspaper articles to mention Fallingwater were published in Wisconsin in January 1937. particularly in publications controlled by Henry Luce and William Randolph Hearst. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that the house attracted notice because of its unusual site. Over the years, there have been many books, articles, and studies on Fallingwater. and the house appeared in an episode of the TV show American Life Style and the PBS television special Walt Harper at Fallingwater in 1972. Fallingwater was also the subject of a 1994 documentary film. produced by Kenneth Love and the WPC, and another documentary in 2011, also produced by Love. Several books have been written about Fallingwater, including ''Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (1978) by Donald Hoffmann, Fallingwater: A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House (1986) by Edgar Kaufmann Jr., Fallingwater: Frank Lloyd Wright's Romance with Nature (1996) by the WPC, and Fallingwater Rising'' (2001) by Franklin Toker. To celebrate the house's 75th anniversary, another book about its history was published in 2011. Photographs from downstream have been widely circulated. Virtual tours of Fallingwater have been created as well. and Love created a 3-D virtual tour of the house in the mid-2010s. The house has been commemorated in other media, such as a postage-stamp issue from 1982. Fallingwater has been depicted in several creative works. For example, it inspired the fictional Vandamm residence in the 1959 film North by Northwest, in addition to buildings in Ayn Rand's 1943 novel The Fountainhead and its 1949 film adaptation. The conclusion of Greg Sestero's 2021 film Miracle Valley was shot inside of Fallingwater; according to Sestero, it was the first feature film to be shot in the house. Awards and landmark designations American architects deemed Fallingwater one of "seven wonders of American architecture" in a 1958 survey. A 1976 poll of American architects ranked it the country's third-best design, tied with the Dulles Main Terminal, while a 1982 poll of Architecture: the AIA journal readers ranked Fallingwater as the country's best building. In a survey of 170 American Institute of Architects (AIA) fellows the next year, the building was ranked second on a list of the "most successful examples of architectural design". AIA members voted Fallingwater the "best all-time work of American architecture" in 1991, and the AIA dubbed it the "building of the century" in 2000. Architectural Record named Fallingwater "the world's most significant building of the 20th century", In 2025, Time Out magazine ranked Fallingwater among the world's most beautiful buildings, calling it "a masterclass in blending architecture with nature". The New York Times said that architects considered Fallingwater "one of Wright's supreme creations". and the house was separately added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a historical marker in 1994 Fallingwater was deemed eligible for inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2008, UNESCO ultimately added eight properties, including Fallingwater, to the World Heritage List in July 2019 under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright". Exhibits and architectural influence at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh|alt=Replica of Fallingwater at the Miniature Railroad & Village at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh There have also been museum exhibits about Fallingwater. which was organized when MoMA curator John McAndrew visited the house shortly after its completion. MoMA hosted other exhibits featuring Fallingwater, including a scale model in 1940, an image showcase in 1959, and another model in 2009. New York's Columbia University hosted a symposium on the structure in 1986, and Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art and the State Museum of Pennsylvania have hosted exhibits about Fallingwater. In addition, the Miniature Railroad & Village at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Center displays a model of Fallingwater. Despite Fallingwater's renown, its design was seldom copied. a gas station in the Washington metropolitan area; a home in Ross Township, Allegheny County; Paul Mayén's home in Garrison, New York; and a house in North Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. == See also ==