ARCHITECTURE

5 Examples of Iconic Modern

Architecture That Have
Serious Flaws
From Frank Lloyd Wrights Fallingwater to Philip Johnsons Glass
House, AD surveys some of the most architecturally significant homes that
were built with flaws
TEXT BY
ERIC ALLEN

Posted September 5, 2016

Architecture, like art, becomes iconic when it breaks from the current
mode and challenges viewers and inhabitants to approach living with
a new consciousness.Modernist houses introduced a new way to live
with open floor plans and clean, modular designs free of unnecessary
ornament. The most renowned examples include buildings like Frank
Lloyd Wrights Fallingwater and Philip Johnsons Glass House, and
though these sites have become meccas for modern aesthetes, they
arent without their faults. Built without todays advanced technology,
many modernist homes suffer from leaky roofs at best and structural
instability at worst, much to the dismay of the people who
commissioned them. Though obviously intended for living, the homes
were designed by their respective architects as examples of purity of
form and high artistic expression. Unfortunately, these aesthetic
goals led to not-so-realistic living situations, and today many of these

houses function not as residences but as museums honoring visionary

design. What follows are the stories of five of the most iconic
modernist homes, flaws and all.

Photo: Getty Images/Education Images

The most famous of Frank Lloyd Wrights homes, Fallingwater in Mill

Run, Pennsylvania, gained notoriety because of its cantilevered design
inspired by Japanese architecture and its integration with the
surrounding forest. Its structural issues, however, have been well
documentedthe distinctive cantilevered balconies had begun to dip
over time due to insufficient reinforcement, and original owner Edgar
Kaufmann Sr. had dubbed the home a seven-bucket building due to
its leaky roof. The site, now a museum, has undergone extensive
repairs over the years, and in 2002 the cantilever beams were
permanently fixed.

Photo: Getty Images

Completed in 1951, the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, is

considered to be a masterpiece not only of Ludwig Mies van der
Rohes career but of modernist architecture. The design, meant to be a
weekend retreat for Chicago-based doctor Edith Farnsworth, called
for floor-to-ceiling glass panels framed by white-painted steel,
emphasizing a connection with the landscape. This scheme, however,
would prove problematic. Farnsworth infamously sued the architect
over issues like frequent floods from a nearby stream, swarms of bugs
attracted to what is essentially an illuminated glass box, rusty steel
beams, and poor ventilation. Today, as a museum, the home has been
fully restored and receives the proper upkeep.

Photo: Getty Images/PHAS

Designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, Villa

Savoye was built in 1931 as a country home for Pierre and Emily
Savoye in Poissy, France, just outside of Paris. The white concrete
structure was designed according to Corbusiers Five Points, including
ground-level columns, an open floor plan, horizontal windows, nonload-bearing faades, and a functional roof. That last point, however,
led to leaks each autumn, and the home needed frequent repairs. After
changing hands many times and surviving possible demolition, the
home is now a museum.

Photo: Courtesy of OMA

Built for a family of five, Maison Bordeaux was completed in 1998 by

architect Rem Koolhaass OMA studio in Frances namesake city with
a distinctive low, modular design and a mix of materials like glass,

aluminum, cement, and perforated Cor-Ten steel. Still a private

residence, the structure has had its fair share of issues, including the
leaky roof so common in modernist buildings and a degradation of the
internal concrete core upon which the floors are cantilevered.

Photo: Getty Images/Ramin Talaie

Philip Johnsons Glass House was completed in 1949 in New Canaan,

Connecticut, as a home for the architect, with a glass-and-steel design
influenced by the Farnsworth House. Now a museum and an icon of
modernist architecture, the building was plagued by the familiar flatroof issue: incessant leaks. In conversation with Frank Lloyd Wright,
who called one of his own homes a two-bucket house, Johnson

replied that his Glass House was a four-bucket home, with one in
each corner.