There was a preview on Public TV of a program which will be aired later this evening, a restrospective of architect Frank LLoyd Wright. I'll probably watch it tonight, the preview made me think of my own experience with his work. I studied it in a Humanities course I took as a student, and part of my coursework included a field trip to Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, which he had designed. I had been very impressed by the place, and felt very much at home there. There was something about the architecture I can't really describe, you immediately felt right there, as if you had spent time there in another life, in a parallel universe somewhere. The buildings, already old by the time I visited, seemed new and fresh, even with the ivy and moss and inevitable stains and cracks in the cement and tile work and the constant use by thousands of students. I guess you could say it aged well and I knew instinctively it would continue to do so. Two buildings in particular seemed to impress me, one was a laboratory, and while walking by I could look in the windows at perfectly ordinary shelving and cabinets and benches filled with glassware and tell myself, "I wish I could have taken my chemistry courses there". The other was the chapel, a vast space which I would normally feel no particular reverence for, but which struck me nevertheless as a sacred and holy place, a fitting setting for contemplation of the divine.

Many years later, my new bride in Pittsburgh convinced me I should take her to vist Fallingwater, the "summer cottage" Wright designed for the Kauffmans, a Pittsburg family of department store moguls back in the 30s. At first, I resisted, it meant a long drive into Penn's Woods just to see a building I was very familiar with from my studies, both textbook photographs and slide projections. I felt it to be an architectural equivalent of the Third Brandenburg Concerto, a masterpiece to be sure, but so overfamiliar from constant repetition it was impossible to really appreciate it any more for what it really was. Besides, I had never really felt comfortable in the company of people who gave proper names to their houses.

It was a beautiful spring day for a drive in the country and the road to Fallingwater was bursting with new life. As we approached, the house looked just like the photographs I had studied, a cantilevered platform jutting out over a mountain stream from the side of a bluff. It was impossible to tell where the house ended and the earth began, the two melded and complemented one another as if the building had grown directly out of the rock and arched across the stream like a fallen log. A guide from the Pennsylvania Conservancy took our donation and guided us and several others through the house, giving us some of the history and background of the place. The tour was casual and unhurried, and we had the opportunity to ask questions, or even depart from the itinerary if there was someplace we chose to linger for a while.

My studies did not prepare me for the experience of beitng there. The house is not very large (although certainly not a cottage!) but it seemed much larger than it really was. It was also impossible to really grasp the dimensions and layout of the place, even though the brochure had a detailed architectural plan printed on the back of it. No matter where you stood, the forest and the stream seemed nearby, visible and audible through the open windows, and it was difficult to determine how far above ground level you were located. The forest floor is visible from nowhere in the house. Local stone and hardwoods from the surrounding area were incorporated into the construction and the same massive rocks from the bluff and the stream bed below protruded through voids in the walls and floors to become part of the structure of the house. The furnishings and details also showed Wright's influence, as well as the Prairie School concepts he pioneered and the Asian design features he so admired he seamlessly blended with them. Twentieth century America and medieval Japan in complete harmony. Ancient rustic simplicity and many modern details, such as indirect lighting and mechanical windows, in perfect combinaton. Everything seemed to fit, the textures, the fabrics in the upholstery, the grain of the woods, the surface of the stone. The colors were cheerful yet subdued, and everything, even the small touches of normal wear and tear visible in the building and furnishings seemed to have been designed in deliberately. Neither too large nor too small, too closed or too open, it was a liveable place, a place you wanted to be in, a place where you felt at home. And every corner you turned was a surprise, every change in level, a delight. I got the feeling it would take a long time living in that house before one could find your way about in the dark. To be there was to be at peace, to be at home. I would have given anything to live there, even if it meant being a servant to the owners. I knew this after having spent only three quarters of an hour there. The Kauffman's, by the way, rarely came to the place. It was too far from Pittsburgh and hard to get to. They only kept it for a few years and rather than maintain it they donated it to the Conservancy. The Kauffman's had done the right thing, no one deserved to live here. This house belong to the nation, to the world.

I felt as one might feel after a walk in a medieval cathedral, or in the Parthenon when it was all new and gleaming marble. It seems silly, but one thought kept running through my mind as my wife and I drove back to Pittsburgh. "When the Martian Ambassador comes visit to Earth, this is where the negotiations have to be held."