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While visiting Fallingwater in the 1980s, Harvard University professor Neil Levine walked through the forest surrounding the famous house, which is set in a glen and cantilevered over a waterfall.
All the tourists had left and the weekend retreat designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Pittsburgh department store magnate Edgar Kaufmann had closed for the day.
Yesterday, Levine recalled thinking that "now is the time for them to turn the water off," which is what happens to the fountains at the gardens in Tivoli, Italy.
Instead, pentagonal lights recessed in the home's balconies flicked on, illuminating Fallingwater's broad expanses of glass.
"The house didn't stop. The water did not go off. The house continued to live," Levine said.
"Very few buildings have the potential to come alive in the physically active sense," such as when the snow melts at Fallingwater, he said.
Author of "The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright," Levine lectured at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland yesterday about "What Makes Fallingwater So Great."
Levine's remarks were a prelude to today's festivities at Fallingwater, during which the Pennsylvania...