Light On The Land

In modernizing the student residences at Fallingwater, the key was a sensitive touch.

- Vanessa Quirk

Sitting in the offices of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ) in Pittsburgh, Bill James pulls out a drawing of a site about an hour and a half’s drive south of the city. The building, the young architect explains, embraces its edge condition. At the front sits the forest of the Bear Run Nature Reserve; at the back, a meadow. The four dwelling units, encased in cedar-stained shale-gray, rest on nimble steel posts, barely touching the sloping ground. Each is positioned to capture the breezes up the valley and the views back down.

James describes all this. But it does not prepare me for when I leave the car and enter the cool autumn-colored forest. To hear the crunch of leaf-strewn gravel. To be confronted with sweeping views of the valley. To see warm light filter through the windows, which come alive with the buzzing of wasps and ladybugs. To feel those cool breezes brush my skin.

The High Meadow residences at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, designed by James and BCJ cofounder Peter Bohlin, sit a few miles from their iconic neighbor, perhaps the greatest standing example of 20th-century American architecture. That the dwellings do not compete but rather lightly coexist with Fallingwater is a testament to the architects who designed them.

The lasting legacy of Bohlin—who will celebrate his 80th birthday this year—may very well be as the designer of iconic Apple stores, such as New York’s Fifth Avenue cube. However, within the architectural community, BCJ signifies something much more profound than a clean retail aesthetic.