Fallingwater Or Frank's almost falling down house..

So yes, indeed, the Parents were in Pittsburgh and enjoyed the sophisticated dining of a cosmopolitan urban center with their Favorite grad student and her sweetie. I actually got a little tolerant acceptance from Raoul but not lap sitting or co-mingled napping, so I'm still jonesing for a kitty fix in Texas next week.

We did go to Fallingwater, the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright house on the waterfall in rural Pennsylvania that turned the thinking of architects forever away from stodgy traditions of design previous to that time. I embarrassed my family by asking Too Many Questions and truly enjoyed the exploration of a truly iconic structure, not unlike the Great Wall and Stonehenge. I am a little annoyed that this building gets such a breathless reverence from the architectural fraternity when, in truth it was fundamentally unsound. Wright broke new ground with the nature of his design, cantilevered, organic, original, open, and inspired. He just didn't do it very well. Early on in the project the owner experienced some concern about the soundness of the stunning cantilevered decks that mark this design and with the complicity of one of Wright's on-site interns had engineers evaluate and sneak in a bit of structural steel to stabilize the breathless expanses of seemingly floating decks that is the hallmark of the design. Wright was famously outraged at the interference and essentially walked off the project. Years later it became obvious that the structure was in peril of collapse in spite of the extra steel and heroic work was done to brace and tighted the structure to present soundness with high tension cable installed to close expanding cracks. I would think the first mark of good design is whether it will stand up for more than a few decades. Oh well, stodgy me....

We had a most fabulous Indian Dinner with the assembled friends and classmates from Pitt and about who then allowed this photo. We specifically saved Mexican and BBQ for Texas next week. We did embarrass ourselves trying to keep up with Rock Band and got nowhere following the bouncing ball, even if we did prsume to "know the words". Not our best skill set. Really a nice week.