In the first of this series, I tried to persuade you that your computer was human-illiterate, and we defined and discussed usability, memorability, and learnability. In the second, we discussed Tognazzini’s Paradox: how the hardest part of designing an effective program is often what seems the most trivial – sometimes simply a matter of changing a single word.
The Famous View of Fallingwater
Now, we should discuss design integrity, and in particular, simplicity and abstraction.
Integrity is easy to identify, hard to explain. Let me give a few examples and make an attempt at explaining.
First, Frank Lloyd Wright. National and international associations of architects have acclaimed one of his houses the most important building of the 20th century: Fallingwater. Fallingwater, a house he built for the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh, is the finest example of his “organic” architecture. Wright considered organic architecture to be what is entirely appropriate to its place, its time, and its user. Having Bear Run go through the living room, and building the room out over the waterfall, sounds like an exercise in spectacle. Yet anyone who has been to Fallingwater (something I highly recommend – and while you’re there, also visit his house Kentuck Knob, open for display about 10 miles away – make sure you visit the sculpture gardens by walking about half an hour down the hill to the entrance buildings) can understand that is is actually a very understated house – there isn’t a bit of spectacle. The irregular, staggered horizontal lines of the house mesh with the flat-bedded stone of the Bear Run ravine, and the house seems to be a natural extension of Laurel Mountain’s bones rather than something imposed on the landscape.
Conover House Back View
I strongly recommend that your visit to Fallingwater also include a day-hike in the surrounding Bear Run Nature Reserve, so you can get a feel for Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands, the western edge of the Appalachian Mountains and a just lovely area to hike. But be prepared for wet weather – the top of Laurel Ridge to the east is a temperate rain forest. It’s about an hour’s drive from my house in Pittsburgh, which was the house and architect’s studio of one of Wright’s pupils, and for years its renovation has been taking more than all my time, effort and energy, but it at least shows I truly buy into this “organic” idea. Read the rest of this entry »
