Fallingwater

Young builders/dreamers will be inspired by this romantic picture-book account of the conception, design, and construction of the Frank Lloyd Wright house Fallingwater. The book opens in 1934, by which time the once-famous architect is almost forgotten. But "a stream in Pennsylvania was about to change all that." At this point the book switches to the present tense, as Pittsburgh department-store magnate Edgar Kaufmann commissions a new home by the waterfall at Bear Run. Its "falling waters" -- the image and sounds and the surrounding nature -- consume Wright's imagination for months until, in a last-minute, urgent flurry, plans for "a house like no other," a "house on the waterfall," are drawn up. The book's second half details the construction work in the text while the iconic home slowly begins to emerge in the illustrations. Harshman and Smucker's prose is by turns straightforward, staccato, and lyrical, the last of which is its most effective tonal state, especially in describing Wright's vision: "In the thundering water, scaffolding spreads its spindly legs. Like branches extending from a tree, the house stretches out over the falls." Readers may recognize Pham's usual visual style in the cartoony human figures, but elsewhere the watercolor, ink, and gouache art channels Wright's clean design and its unique, organic harmony with nature. The authors' note discusses the context of the Fallingwater ?project in Wright's career and in its historical era; an artist's note touches on research Pham did to "convey the difficulty of such a feat." Appended with source notes and a bibliography. katrina Hedeen