America’s greatest architect, creator of "organic architecture" and Fallingwater
The greatest and most prolific architect in American history, champion of "organic architecture" — the idea that a building should be one with its setting and terrain, as if it grew naturally out of the earth. In his early years he founded the "Prairie style," using long horizontal lines to answer the vast land of the American Midwest. His most famous masterpiece, Fallingwater, is cantilevered directly over a waterfall, uniting the building with rock, stream, and trees, an icon of twentieth-century architecture. He also designed the uniquely spiraling space of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Fiercely independent all his life, keeping a complex relationship with his teacher Sullivan and with European modernism, he held always to an American path of modern architecture close to nature and to people.
The client had expected Fallingwater to be built on the far bank where one could "see" the waterfall. But Wright cantilevered the house directly over the falls, so the water rushes beneath the living room and its sound is a day-and-night companion. He wanted not "a house to view the scenery," but "a house that becomes part of the scenery." This bold, near-reckless decision made Fallingwater an eternal symbol of the coexistence of man and nature.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.