Marian and I took a day trip from Pittsburgh out to Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece, Fallingwater. It is about 70 miles out of the city and about 1000 mixed emotions out of this world! Unlike my good friend George who has "FLW" as part of his license plate, I have never been a HUGE fan of Wright's though I have been to Taliesen in Wisconsin and have seen many of his works throughout Los Angeles an elsewhere.
But this trip, this drive, this immersion into Fallingwater has really gotten to me. Fallingwater is plum in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere. The peaceful, meditative hum of the moving water can be heard constantly and once you lay eyes on this iconic house you have seen in photos all your life, you are hooked; mesmerized.
The tour of the house is fantastic but it is the cantilevered glory of this place and how it works itself into the rocks and the, well, falling water that so moves.
Standing on an upper tier of the house and looking down onto people standing on other tiers and hearing the water and noticing the play of the light and the interaction of the people warmed my soul and made me feel more alive. Hard to explain beyond being a stand-in for a religious experience.
It is truly a lovely place and an amazing work of art. Also fascinating is the Kaufmann family of the Pittsburgh department store fame (and wealth) who commissioned Wright to design this for them as their summer home.
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