Falling Water

In the era when modernism was splendid in the history of architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright was an important person who had to be mentioned (although he was not so "modernist"), and Falling Water was in Wright. Occupies an extremely important position in his life work.

Luoshui Mountain Villa was originally a private villa built on a waterfall in the mountain forest of Pennsylvania, USA. The surrounding environment is a lush green forest, accompanied by the sound of torrential water. Man-made buildings do not appear abrupt in such a beautiful natural environment, but rather give the impression that buildings are born from the ground. One of the key elements used to integrate into the environment is the building material. The local stone material makes Luoshui Mountain Villa like a quiet stone house "growing" by the stream. Because the backbone of the skin has the same genes as the surrounding environment, even if the building itself has been washed away for decades, it still has the mountainous temperament of the original architect's design and even gets along with the environment more and more harmoniously. . I think this is an organic manifestation: the moss on the base and the external wall stone, the falling paint and the markings on the wooden frame material all gradually change with time, as if the building also has life; the other is the organic building. It is reflected in the relationship between the building and its interior and exterior. In addition to the harmony between the building and the environment in terms of materials, from the style and furnishings of the interior furniture to the visual guidance completed by opening the window, each building-related element is implicated. The relationship exists. Another simple analogy: entering the interior of the Luoshui Villa building is like entering an organism. Every organ, every blood vessel and nerve are so closely connected, and they are all arranged so appropriately, like an organism.

Visual extension is another technique used by Wright to connect with the environment. He uses the lowered ceiling to flatten the interior space, thereby turning the large and small glass windows in the house into a framed view, and uses various visual angles to transform the exterior The natural scenery is absorbed into the room. Although some people say that the slightly low ceiling is because Wright is a short man, and the owner is also a short man, so this has become an architect’s willful idea, or it can be said to be a "customized" design result. , But I believe that it is not a coincidence that the use of changes in the sense of space to achieve the effect of guiding the vision must not be a coincidence. Although the interface of the building's cortex still maintains the characteristics of modernism and makes a clear distinction between indoor and outdoor, because the line of sight has been designed, an ingenious relationship between indoor and outdoor is created, and the outdoor scenery is sucked into the building. The space in the building penetrates the outside. In this place, I think of the relationship between Kengo Kuma and the physicality proposed by Hara Hiroshi. Falling Water also uses physical senses and visual experience to connect the indoor subject (that is, human) with the outdoor nature. In fact, the fact that the stream and the waterfall are under the building also shows the relationship that Mr. Kuma said: water can be imagined as a kind of relational medium. When the water flows out from the floor of the building, the view range of the window is as if it is also It can extend outward through the glass, so that the dynamic connection effect is stronger than that of a static water surface.

As for the mass design of the building, Falling Water maintains Wright's consistent design style, intertwining vertical and horizontal elements, so that the mass also has an irregular extension of visuality. The vertical measuring body is made of stone, and the horizontally heavy concrete measuring body floats on the glass box, so the whole logic of the design becomes very clear. The dark stone, off-white painted concrete volume, and transparent glass box express the sense of lightness with thin black window frames. The three main architectural elements allow the building to maintain a stable and unstable balance point, which is stable and yet stable. It makes people feel shaky, which is an interesting effect that can be achieved through the cooperation of structure and architectural design.

When the design has reached this point, some of the relative parts become negligible, such as the details where the thin frame and the structure are joined. The sound of the stream is brought into the house around the clock, which also violates the basic requirements of modern people for a quiet house. But the living behavior should not be the same. People are used to imposing a lot of prejudice restrictions on themselves, and the design of architects is often limited to the same scope. In fact, the program should be constantly challenged. In other words, because the environment is in the mountains, or the owner loves nature, the sound of the stream is not a noise and does not need to be isolated, and condensation and water seepage will not be too serious problems, and privacy is also Don’t get too much care. The Falling Water, designed by modernist masters, occupies an important position in the history of architecture because of the vivid expression of the prairie style. However, it reveals clues against rules and rationality (rationality is the connotation of modernism) in many places. Wright himself is a person with a willful and aloof personality.

Falling Water and the forest in which it is located also constitute an interesting experience, that is, approach experience. On the way to Falling Water, in addition to the seemingly irregular but hidden order space experience provided by the forest (like the forest in the eyes of Sou Fujimoto), there are also several view points that can overlook the building through the bushes and branches. From all angles, the joyful feeling is enhanced in the mood of traveling, and it seems that there is a feeling of mixing the natural environment and architecture together into a whole place. As a result, the forests and buildings have changed. Once Falling Water moves out of this mountain forest, everything will be different! And the thing that accomplishes this is architecture. In the case of the Kumao Mountain Observatory designed by Kengo Kuma, the architect's main concept was to weaken the presence of the building, and to strengthen the design movement to create a series of visual experiences with the natural environment. The difference between the two is that the Guilao Mountain Observatory adopts an active movement design, which allows people to experience the prepared natural feast while moving in the weakened building; the relative Falling Water is not "designed" to move. Line, but put the buildings integrated into the natural environment there, making the building a part of the landscape, and the environment will produce inadvertent opportunities to connect with the building, which is a passive behavior. However, both of them can be seen as a manifestation of approach experience and also a method of spreading the field that architecture can affect.