Fallingwater by Marc Harshman (review)

1934 didn't look like a particularly auspicious year for architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The Great Depression was in full swing and the master hadn't had a high profile commission in years; in fact, it looked like his best days were done. Then Pittsburgh department store owner Edgar Kaufmann was inspired by a large rock on his Pennsylvania property at Bear Run, and he knew Wright was the man who could develop his idea into a magnificent home. Then there was the clincher—the waterfall: "[Wright] sees every boulder, tree, and waterfall. He sees the house that will live among them." Harshman and Smucker's lyrical text conveys the dreaming and imagination that impelled what became possibly Wright's best-known project, while Pham's watercolors, filled with brightness and clarity of water and earth, suggest the soaring delicacy of the cantilevered elements as they emerge from a busy construction site. The focus here is on building as well as design, and endnotes—especially Pham's—attest to the challenges of reimagining the steps of Fallingwater's construction from architectural drawings and a few grainy photos. The interplay of creativity and execution are lovingly developed here, and with K. L. Going's The Shape of the World: A Portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright (BCCB 9/17) to put Fallingwater in context of Wright's achievements, aspiring architects are in for a double treat.