Fallingwater
Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated house cantilevered over a waterfall in the Pennsylvania woods.
Fallingwater is a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a weekend retreat for the Pittsburgh department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann, his wife Liliane and their son Edgar Kaufmann jr. It stands in the forested Laurel Highlands of south-western Pennsylvania, where Wright chose to build directly above a waterfall on Bear Run rather than facing it. Designed in 1935, the main house was completed in 1937 and a guest house followed in 1939. It is widely regarded as one of the most important works of twentieth-century American architecture.
The house is anchored to a sandstone boulder, and its reinforced-concrete terraces cantilever out over the stream, balanced by vertical walls of locally quarried stone. Bands of steel-framed windows dissolve the corners and bring the woodland into the interior. In the living room the natural rock on which the house rests emerges through the floor in front of the hearth, and a hatch opens to a suspended stair leading down to the water. Much of the original furniture, designed by Wright, remains in place along with the Kaufmanns' art collection.
In 1963 Edgar Kaufmann jr. entrusted the house, its contents and the surrounding land to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and it opened to the public for tours the following year. The Conservancy has since carried out several major conservation projects, including structural strengthening of the cantilevers and, most recently, a three-year preservation programme completed before the 2026 season. In 2019 Fallingwater was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. The site celebrates its 90th anniversary in 2026.
Highlights
- Cantilevered concrete terraces built directly over the Bear Run waterfall
- Living-room hearth set on the natural boulder the house is built upon
- Original Wright-designed furniture and the Kaufmann family's art collection
- Part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2019
- Woodland trails leading to the classic view of the house from downstream
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