Jane Russell and cantilevers

When Howard Hughes hired Jane Russell to star in his pictures, he also hired a structural engineer from Hughes Aircraft to design a new bra to "maximize" and support the assets he had purchased.

Perhaps Mr. Wright should have used the same engineer when he built Fallingwater. Frank Lloyd Wright used cantilevers to infinitely extend the lines of his buildings.

If you remember your high school geometry, you will remember that lines and planes are infinite. Hence a cantilever projection out of a house, makes the house appear to go on forever. This is especially true of our little usonian with its cantilevered carport and trellis projections at the end of each wing. The planes of the house are extended forever and simultaneously they seem to hug the earth. However, these cantilevers need to be anchored firmly to maintain their structural integrity.

Unlike Ms. Russells' foundation garments though, Fallingwater's cantilevers began to fail almost as soon as they were built and they underwent a massive reconstruction just before we toured the home a couple of years ago.

Our carport has steel structures to help anchor it in place. AND the steel was fabricated right here in good ole Burlington NC at Piedmont Metals of Burlington... just about spittin' distance from our lot.

Thanks to Wikepedia for the picture of Fallingwater.

For or Against?

For some reason, thinking about all these small organic houses makes me think of a hideously boring book I had to write a paper about at Ole Miss. AGAINST NATURE by Joris-Karl Huysmans was required reading in Dr. S___'s class.

There was probably more to it than what I remember but what sticks in my mind is this rich guy, decides he wants to play at being a monk. So he gets himself a cell, some monkish clothes, etc. But the cell, although it LOOKS like a monks cell is really a very luxurious room, his own bedroom in fact, made to look austere. He hangs expensive velvet curtains the color of stone to replicate monastery walls. His monk's robes, although they LOOK very scratchy and hairclothy are really very comfortable, soft, silken cashmere materials. He's pretending to be one thing, leading a spartan sort of life, set apart from the material world, whereas he's really taken all the goodies with him.

A Usonian is an honest sort of building. In the best of all worlds, it should be made with local natural materials by local craftsmen. It is different from AGAINST NATURE in that very simple things - simply by their arrangement- make for luxurious living. And, although the street sides of the houses are somewhat blocked from the world, step into any of the houses and you see all of nature, just on the other side of all those windows.

Here is a link to one of the most luxurious Usonians, Kentuck Knob which is in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, home to Wright's most famous house, Fallingwater. O, what the hell, I'll go ahead and link to that one too, although technically that's too high cotton for this blog.

http://www.dgunning.org/architecture/Penn/hagan.htm

http://www.fallingwater.org/