Structural Design for Architecture
Fig. 4.13 Falling Water,
the Bear Run,
Pennsylvania, 1936. Frank
Lloyd Wright, architect.
The cantilevered balconies
of this building required
the use of a high-strength
structural material which
would allow a high degree
of structural continuity to
be developed. Reinforced
concrete was the ideal
material in which to
realise this form. [Photo:
Andrew Gilmour]
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size of the building is close to the limits of
what is feasible with the method of construc-
tion employed.
It is interesting to note that, unlike the case
of the rationalist buildings of Le Corbusier,
Gropius, Lubetkin and others, in which the
logic of the structure was accepted and
allowed to influence the architectural
language, neither of these buildings in which
structure was virtually ignored when the form
was determined was destined to be imitated to
any significant extent.
In the building boom which followed the war
of 1939-45 many buildings which conformed to
the mainstream of architectural Modernism, as
it had been developed in the 1920s and 1930s,
were erected with reinforced concrete struc-
tures. The concrete was often left exposed and
