Fallingwater photo

JChoate · Post by **JChoate** » Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:13 pm

At someone else's house I saw a book about FLW I hadn't seen before. It was a sampler of photos of various projects. I came across a 2 page image of Fallingwater in autumn taken by Thomas Heinz.
It looked to be a fairly typical image until, looking closer, I noticed the trellis which was a wreck:

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:28 pm

Wow. Don't you wonder when that photo was taken -- for whatever that might tell us about the (accidental or intentional ) destruction ?

SDR

Forest · Post by **Forest** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:57 am

That is from the early or mid 1980Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s, as I recall. A tree had fallen in a storm and took out the trellis. It was repaired fairly quickly.

DRN · Post by **DRN** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 9:09 am

I visited the house in July 1983 while at a pre-college summer program at Carnegie Mellon. Small slivers of concrete were still at the edge of the stream beneath the (we were told) just repaired trellis....a "V" in a large tree had split in a storm and the falling tree broke the trellis. I picked up a matchbook sized piece of which I still have. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll send a pic to SDR.
My 17 year old self thought it a great and quite affordable souvenir. I now look at it and see the paint history of the house, and note the similarity to the original masonry color selected for the house in which I now live.

JChoate · Post by **JChoate** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 6:54 pm

good story Dan. I look forward to seeing your photo.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:35 pm

Here are Dan's photos. First is the sliver he collected at Fallingwater, then the chip held up against the painted block at Sweeton . . .

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:42 pm

When Bill Schwartz and I visited the de Young Museum here, last spring, a surprise was the inclusion of an automobile: a Cord 812 Phaeton from the Academy of Art's collection,
painted a color I hadn't seen on a Cord before, the color surprisingly close to this golden ocher found on the grandest and the most humble of Wright's late-career houses . . .

https://deyoung.famsf.org/exhibitions/cult-machine

SDR

Duncan · Post by **Duncan** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:44 pm

I have seen a number of published photos of the house post trellis repair. It's a poor job...the repaired trellis is thicker than the original...perhaps lumpy is the best description.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:36 pm

Hmm. Looking for possible photographic evidence I happen upon this pleasant view -- late spring or early summer ? -- the house sharing the picture plane with her "front yard" . . .

I don't know when the photo was taken, bur presumably following both recent major surgeries . . . ?

I really like this view.

photo Ã‚Â© 2008 by Tim Darling

http://www.amnesta.net/other/fallingwater/

Tipsy-survy still, and presumably ever: compare the top-most visible step to the near bottom edge of the upstream terrace. From here the trellis doesn't look too bad -- but we're
not very close to it, yet . . .

SDR

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:45 am

DRN provides three photos he took on April 8, 1979. In the first photo we see the tree limb responsible for the undated damage to the trellis. Other photos show the undamaged trellis.

Meisolus · Post by **Meisolus** » Fri Oct 26, 2018 11:40 am

I visited in October of 2017 and just happened to get good shots of the trellis. I'd have to agree with SDR that the new portion is a bit shoddy by comparison, or at least is at the join between old and new.

SREcklund · Post by **SREcklund** » Fri Oct 26, 2018 12:19 pm

Maybe I'm blind or just ignorant, but I don't see this "terrible difference" between the old and the new ... ?

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Oct 26, 2018 5:33 pm

It was Duncan, not I, who reported finding that the repaired trellis was "lumpy." I do not see what I regard as faulty work, though I suppose the slight irregularities of the bull-nose might be cause for disappointment . . .

I'm glad, however, that others might be as fussy about craftsmanship as I am ! If the trellis is measurably thicker now than originally, it would be good to have that confirmed.

SDR

JChoate · Post by **JChoate** » Fri Oct 26, 2018 5:45 pm

Meisolus, those are good photos to see. My attention was caught by your top view. Let's look closer at the parts & pieces there.

I'm not sure what exactly are those glazing panel serving as the skylight. They appear to have some depth and are beveled at their edges to slope downward toward trough's cast into the top of the intermediate trellis members. Those gutter troughs feed into the small drain pipes cast thru the outer trellis member where they daylight onto the terrace. Presumably, a flexible coating lines the gutter trough and flashes up onto the glazing panels -- no easy thing to guarantee a permanent and thorough seal. Trickier still, that surface has to be sealed into the drain pipes.
In the upper right corner there appears to be what might be a pipe from the terrace above penetrating the wall flashing to feed into the rightmost gutter. On the probably lengthy to do list for ongoing maintenance would be to keep the leaves off of this configuration.

Nowadays there are some sophisticated liquid-applied membrane systems available to achieve fairly flexible & lasting seals to adjacent materials. I wonder what they used to attempt this assembly in 1936.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:19 pm

Meisolus's photos are remarkable; thanks for the generous files. Several things catch the eye: when did the Cherokee red sash (Hoffman, p 58 ) become so dark ?

I see a place for a cat-or-small-doggie door, in floor-level glazing adjacent to the hatchway in one photo. Is the ground accessible from this terrace ? And what is the "baseboard" material on the terrace(s) ?

SDR