[Editor’s Note: I started this entry in mid-August,
just before school started. But at some point before I could finish it, responsibility
kicked in, and I actually went back and finished my syllabi… As the subject line states here, the syllabi are done, hooray!, so I begin to tidy up some left-over “vacation tasks”… :) ]
Here on the verge of a new semester, with "syllabi to go before I sleep,"
I find myself looking back, reflecting on my summer past, my vacation, my recovery
from the long haul of the tenure-trauma that wore me down so.
I’m thinking about Falling Water, a side trip on our "Baseball Vacation."
Falling Water fit–the principle of the fittedness of context, environment,
and structure being so key to Frank Lloyd Wright–Falling Water fit between
Cleveland, the game at Jacobs Field (with the highly entertaining between inning
commentary by a very drunk, or increasingly drunk, Paul Assenmacher), and the
game at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. And now, as I’m writing and posting syllabi,
my computer falls to sleep, and starts cycling through all the pictures scattered
across its hard drive. There arises Falling
Water
There are so many things to love about Falling Water. For one…just how many
years has it been since I last used the word, "cantilevered"? Our delightful
guide explained the cantilevered design with such thoroughnesss and "balance."
Our Guide: She was a young, Gen-X-er-aged woman, but really she belonged to
another generation. Her admiration for Wright, for the society that is preserving
the home, for museums and art and possibilities, all bespoke a centering in
some kind of timeless humanitarian possibility. In a word, she struck me as
a true-believer in the gentle, melioristic influences (and compulsions) of art
and ideas; she had no pretension, no judgment of the rest of the world. She
was self-aware and mildly wry, in that wincing way that is very sweet, for there
is only complexity in it, and no meanness. She kinda nodded to our baseball
vacation, with a genuine smile, but a half-apologetic disconnectedness or muted
puzzlement. But I digress…
Falling Water is a beautiful idea–the integration of architecture, nature,
functionality, human needs–but it’s also a lie and a contradiction.
For how can I reconcile the humanitarian principle that scales everything
to human needs and proportions (which is five foot seven, fine enough for me
and Wright, but a little tight for my tallish sons and daughter) with the elitist
indulgence of its many extremes? Egads, the thing was built in the worst
days of the Depression (for about $8,000–which leads me to think: I could have
two Falling Waters for about the expense of our recent bathroom remodeling,
but I digress…). And what do you need to situate this house? Land, lots of
it….and trees…and perhaps some public access roads (on the civic dime, of
course). Oh yes, a quarry, so you can "dig your own" shale (or whatever
the stone is). Oh, and one other thing: a waterfall to integrate around and
within….
I mean: Isn’t there some rhetoric shouting out of all of Wright’s architecture?
Doesn’t Wright make a counter-statement to the architectures of the past? Yes,
he was an innovator, but more than that, he was a humanitarian innovator,
in a sense suggesting a kind of universalizing Way to Salvation: Build on these
principles, if you would have principled buildings… And on what principles
are the buildings built? Context, function, human proportion, integration, conservation…
But, spoilsport that I almost am (for I did not voice any objection
as I and my family marveled at the patent splendor), I must reflect at this
time: There is nothing universalizable about Falling Water (except for its shout
of privilege, privacy, and the life of an idea…)
I know I’m being unfair, but I’m talking about a feeling that Falling
Water evokes in me. I could never live there…and how could anyone?
As an idea, Falling Water is not only elegant, but timeless. The water flows
forever–is flowing now, presumably, as you read this. And I can hear it now,
and feel soothed by it, awash in the glow of many pleasant memories… The world
is better for it, and the life of its idea, across generations, and in all kinds
of circumstances, even a baseball vacation. But it’s a tour de force…beautiful…gaudy,
in its cleverness and elegance.