Customer Reviews - Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater Special Edition (2005)

Excellent look at an inconic Wright commission, January 30, 2008
By Mark S. Hertzberg

The first disc includes a rich history of this iconic Wright commission, with many historic photos. There are also extended interviews with Lynda Waggoner, the director of Fallingwater, and with Richard Cleary, an architectural historian.

Waggoner spoke at the recent Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy national meeting about her almost life-long involvement with, and love of, the house. Her enthusiasm for her work is contagious, as she takes us on tour, and talks about the house and its history. Her tour is a good precursor to one's first visit to Fallingwater (the 2008 Conservancy meeting will be at Fallingwater, in September).

Talking about E.J. Kaufmann and Wright, who sometimes clashed while the house was being built, she says, "They were similar people. They were both big thinkers, men who liked to make things happen, men who had great vision. What held them together was this shared vision of creating something extraordinary...You don't have to be very knowledgeable about architecture to have the building speak to you personally."

She paints vivid word pictures for us ("Suddenly nature is presented to you at the level of a bug. Wright had this unique ability to present nature to us."). She ends her interview telling us, "A masterpiece is something that has a timelessness about it...I think Fallingwater is doing well over the test of time..."

Cleary has a more academic view of the house. Their intimate knowledge of Fallingwater is woven with Sakamoto's photography, which takes us to places we cannot go in person. The camera is just to our right during the interviews. Cleary and Waggoner tend to look at the camera, rather than at the viewer. We would be drawn into the story of the house even more if they engaged us directly during their interviews.

The second disc of the set is an interactive visual tour of Fallingwater, including panoramic views of exterior of the house, and of the grounds. The disc includes copies of original plans and presentation drawings, as well as dozens of contemporary photos.
From Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater Special Edition (2005) - Amazon.com