In the Shadow of Icons: Design Dialogue to Discuss Cottages Planned Near Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Martin House Restoration Corporation and University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning are co-sponsoring a Friday night dialogue on a competition to design a series of guest cottages situated near architect Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.

Speakers will include John Patkau, a principal of Patkau Architects, the Vancouver-based firm that won the Fallingwater competition; Lynda Waggoner, director of Fallingwater; and Raymund Ryan, curator for the Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center, where the designs of Patkau Architects and five other firms involved in the competition were exhibited earlier this year.

The location of the 7 p.m. discussion on Nov. 19 will be fitting: The Eleanor & Wilson Greatbatch Pavilion, an elegant, glass structure at 143 Jewett Pkwy. in Buffalo that sits adjacent to the Darwin D. Martin House Complex, another Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece.

Space at Friday's event is limited. Attendees can purchase tickets at https://tickets.darwinmartinhouse.org/public/. General admission is $15, with $10 tickets for Martin House Associates and free entry for UB School of Architecture and Planning students who show their student identification card.

"Good clients make good architecture, and the opportunity to hear from both architects and clients in a venue like this is invaluable," said Brian Carter, dean of UB's School of Architecture and Planning. "We can all learn so much from those conversations."

Fallingwater, built over a waterfall on Bear Run, is one of Wright's most famous creations. The celebrated American architect designed the home, built in the 1930s, for the Kaufmanns, a Pittsburgh, Pa., family that owned a department store.

Patkau Architects' winning design for six small, sustainable cottages on the grounds of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which operates Fallingwater, will serve as the basis of a final design. The cottages will support programming at Fallingwater by expanding accommodations for participants in diverse educational programs offered by Fallingwater.

At Friday's event, the guest speakers will discuss the cottage competition, exploring ideas related to Wright buildings and the newer, adjacent structures complementing those famed structures. The dialogue will also cover sustainable design and the effect Fallingwater has on new architecture today.

Eric Jackson-Forsberg, curator for the Martin House Complex, says the Fallingwater cottages competition present parallels to the construction of the Eleanor & Wilson Greatbatch Pavilion, which opened in 2009 and was designed by Toshiko Mori Architect. Both projects involved designing architecturally significant structures adjacent to Wright masterpieces.

"I think there will be some interesting dialogue centering around the challenges inherent to this kind of commission," Jackson-Forsberg said. "Bringing these speakers in helps put what we've done here in Buffalo into context, and underscores the challenges inherent in this kind of commission."