Pitt Art History Professor Franklin Toker to Deliver Lecture on Myths and Magic of Fallingwater

PITTSBURGH—University of Pittsburgh Professor of Art History Franklin Toker will deliver a free public lecture and slide presentation on his new book, Fallingwater Rising (Alfred A. Knopf), at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4 at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.

Toker worked 18 years on his history of what many people consider the greatest house on earth. Fallingwater Rising explores the unlikely collaboration of merchant

E. J. Kaufmann and aging architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The building they produced, the Kaufmann family's weekend home, brought international fame to them both and elevated Wright to his place as the greatest architect of the 20th century. Toker enhances the story of Fallingwater by weaving in key figures of 1930s America, including Henry Luce, William Randolph Hearst, and Ayn Rand, as well as the Carnegie, Mellon, and Frick families of Pittsburgh. Toker will explain what Fallingwater means to architectural history and to all of us today.

Also the author of books on the Gothic Revival, the ancient cathedral of Florence, and the architecture and industry of Pittsburgh, Toker is esteemed in his field, and served as president of the Society of Architectural Historians in 1993 and 1994.

The book will be on sale in the lobby of Carnegie Music Hall. A book signing will follow the presentation. For more information, call 412-648-2400.

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