Open Post : Frank

I was really excited over last weekend to visit Falling Water and Kentuck Knob in Western Pennsylvania. It struck me oddly that a visiting professor from Korea, that has been here for 2 months, has seen more iconic American Design locations in the US than I have. Pathetic right. So in an attempt to regain some designer street cred I took a trip up to have a look at these two famous designs by our's truly, Frank Loyd Wright.

The most interesting thing that I encountered, was my appreciation for Kentuck Knob over Falling Water. The two go hand in hand because they are but 13miles away from one another, yet K Knob is grossly over looked and often forgotten. To be honest, I didn't even know about it till my friend made the reservations and said that we were going there first.

Falling Water is out standing in every way imaginable. just the size of the cantilevered balcony over the water evokes a unique feeling all its own. The rooms are so typical of Franks demands to be more interested with what going on outside the house than in. It really has some great characteristics in its floor plan that really are nice and thoughtful. But, his over all design details are so, undergraduate. You can tell that this was a very early house that he was honing in on his stereo typical nuances that have yet been refined. A very beautiful house none the less, but K Knob was more refined and structured.

Kentuck Knob, a home later into his career is, I feel, at the center of Frank's all encompassing design details, nuances and philosophy. Though F W was more complete in that it had everything original to the house including furniture, tapestries and paintings, and anything else Frank could control them to buy, K Knob was more cohesive in its architecture and refinement and ornamentation. Sad to say the current owner of the home, and English Lord, uses the house as more of a reliquary for all his museum quality nic-nacs than anything else. The K Knob house is just built, designed and executed better then F W. But as a total package, since the K Knob doesn't have its original furniture or art work still in the house to round off the house, F W was by far better as a total tourist package, and K Knob a better representation of who Frank was as a philosopher of design.