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Patricia Lowry can be reached at [email protected] or 412-263- 1590.
It's probably fair to say Edgar Kaufmann Jr. didn't know quite what he was in for when he invited Franklin Toker to give a talk at Columbia University in 1986, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Fallingwater.
To prepare, Toker, who teaches the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh, visited Columbia's Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library to look through the Fallingwater drawings and documents, which at the time could not be done without Kaufmann's approval.
"The very first item that I found, literally, was a letter from Kaufmann Sr. to Kaufmann Jr. in 1946, in which he's describing building operations for the Palm Springs house," designed by Richard Neutra. "He's talking foundation methods, soil retention and special techniques for pouring the swimming pool," said Toker. "I was seeing a tenfold more capable and learned person than I had been led to expect."
What Toker learned over the next 18 years convinced him that, contrary to Fallingwater mythology, it was Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., not Jr., who initiated the contact with Frank Lloyd Wright that ultimately led to the construction of what would quickly become one of the most famous houses in the world -- and not by chance. Kaufmann Sr., it seems, left nothing to chance.
So began the long road to "Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E.J. Kaufmann and America's Most Extraordinary House," published this month by Alfred A. Knopf and edited by Robert Gottlieb. The 475-page book is a sort of dual biography of the house and Kaufmann, with Wright as linchpin. To launch it, Toker is presenting a free public lecture at 2 p.m. Oct. 4 in Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland.
As accessible as it is cultured and scholarly, "Fallingwater Rising" presents Kaufmann to the world as the...