Juniata Hosts Talk on Frank Lloyd Wright\'s Fallingwater
(Posted March 19, 2007)
HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Lynda Waggoner, director of Fallingwater, the modernist architectural gem created by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, will lecture at Juniata College on "Fallingwater: A Sense of Place" at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, March 29 in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata campus.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
Fallingwater is located in Bear Run, Pa. and was completed in 1938 as a summer residence for Edgar Kaufman, a department-store magnate from Pittsburgh, Pa. The house, noted for its cantilevered extensions that "float" over the creek and waterfall where the house is situated, is the only home designed by Wright that has been preserved with its setting, original furnishings and artwork intact.
The house recently underwent extensive renovations and stabilization for the structure and particularly its cantilevered extensions, which were slowly sagging and deteriorating. In addition to stabilizing the cantilevers, the house was waterproofed, and the windows and furniture were restored and repaired.
Lynda Waggoner started her career at Fallingwater as a high school tour guide and is now recognized as one of the nation's top experts on Fallingwater. She became full-time curator in 1986 and was named director in 1996. She also is vice president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, the foundation that owns and operates Fallingwater and its surrounding property.
She earned a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Kentucky and earned a master's degree in art history from the University of Pittsburgh. She started her career as curator of the Museum Without Walls, an outreach program of the Baltimore Museum of Art. She also was named curator of the Leff Collection of non-Western art at the Baltimore museum. In 1980, she was named executive director of the Touchstone Center for Crafts in Farmington, Pa.
She recently published the book "Fallingwater: Frank Lloyd Wright's Romance with Nature."
She is a past president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and is a member of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's Historic preservation Board. She also serves on the boards of Preservation Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Federation of Museums and the Community Foundation of Fayette County.
She was awarded the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 2004. She maintains an active national lecture schedule. She has spoken most recently at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Calif., and at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.