Synopses & Reviews
Built in 1935 in Bear Run, Pennsylvania, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is one of the great masterpieces of modern architecture. Thousands visit the houses every year, and thousands more ponder its breathtaking lines and balance at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where its scale model is part of the permanent collection.
Perched as it is on rocks above a waterfall, the house, built for the most part of reinforced concrete, is as much a feat of engineering as it is a marvel of design. To overcome the various challenges of recreating not only Wright's design, but also the trees, rocks, and water, Paul Bonfilio was forced to expand the horizons of traditional model building and called on to use a dazzling variety of new materials, including a special blend of plaster of Paris, photographs covered in miniature plastic tiles, and even a rock from the original landscape.
In Fallingwater: The Architectural Model, Bonfilio writes of his relation to the house and particularly its model and his two years of building it. With the precision of model maker he describes the various challenges he came across, and explains how he overcame them. Every step of the process is illustrated with pictures of the evolving model, juxtaposed as they are with details of the original house. The result is a magnificent journey through the famous structure,
from which the reader emerges with a new appreciation for not only the flow of the house, but an intimate knowledge of its construction and engineering idiosyncrasies.
This book should appeal not only the many fans of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, but also those with a special interest in the design and construction of architectural models.
Synopsis
An analysis of the model yields fresh insights about the house.
Synopsis
Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, in Bear Run, Pa., of 1935, is one of the great masterpieces of modern architecture. Its model, constructed by Paul Bonfilio in 1984 , is a masterpiece of model making and a high point in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In discussing how the model was built, the design of the famous house itself is also analyzed, throwing new light on many intricacies of its complex construction.
About the Author
Paul Bonfilio is an architect, and currently a commissioner and vice-chairman of the Board of Standards and Appeals of the City of New York.
Terrence Riley is chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.