Preserving the works of Frank Lloyd Wright
Silman is well known in the preservation world for the skillful engineering employed to save Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. The 1936 home juts boldly out over a waterfall in the Pennsylvania mountains, but by the mid-1990s the structure’s cantilevered concrete terraces had deflected and the house’s future was imperiled. After erecting temporary steel shoring, Silman’s engineers designed major repairs to the cantilevers using external post-tensioning, deliberately raising the sagging portion of the house by a mere fraction of an inch to prevent future deflection without damaging other areas of the building.
Fallingwater is far from the only Frank Lloyd Wright structure that Silman has had the opportunity to work on. Following this project, Silman collaborated with the same preservation architect at the Guggenheim Museum, where the firm’s engineers performed a structural conditions assessment and worked on the subsequent exterior restoration that utilized carbon-fiber reinforcement to correct structural deficiencies without compromising the facade’s exterior appearance.
In the Northeast, Silman’s portfolio also includes Beth Sholom Synagogue, the lone synagogue designed by Wright; the Darwin Martin House, considered one of the most refined Prairie-style residences on the East Coast; and the Graycliff Estate, one of the most elaborate summer estates Wright ever designed. In the Midwest, Silman has worked at locations including the Glasner House, the S.C. Johnson Research Tower, Taliesin, and Wingspread.
Image credits: Darwin Martin House: Tim Engleman / Graycliff Estate: Jeff Hart / S.C. Johnson Research Tower: Paul Sableman / Taliesin: Kent Wang / Wingspread: seligmanwaite
All images licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.