Straight lines and waterfalls
Went to Fallingwater over the weekend.
Pictures are up. It's one of the Kaufmann family's seven homes, this one designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Interesting factoids from the tour:
- Since it wasn't their primary residence, the walls were adorned with their lesser art. You know, just a Diego Rivera and a Picasso. Oh, and the Rembrandt in the servants' quarters.
- The Kaufmanns treated their servants well. They hired additional local workers (meta-servants, heh) to clean the servants' quarters.
- Wright considered the house a work of art and so had no tolerance for complaints. When the Kaufmanns told him they counted fifty leaks, he told them to buy fifty buckets.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Wright. Too many heavy, horizontal lines. In fact, I'd like to see him duke it out with Viennese artist Hundertwasser, who favors more organic curves. From
Hundertwasser's manifesto against rationalism in architecture:
"This jungle of straight lines, which is entangling us more and more like inmates in a prison, must be cleared. The straight line is godless and immoral. The straight line is not a creative line, it is a duplicating line, an imitating line. In it, God and the human spirit are less at home than the comfort-craving, brainless intoxicated and unformed masses."
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