Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Fallingwater, the
famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's crowning
achievement located about 50 miles outside of Pittsburgh in rural
Pennsylvania.
I've visited a Wright creation before, the Zimmerman house in
Manchester, New Hampshire, and became totally taken by his style
and design philosophies. (I also read a great book called
Loving Frank
by Nancy Horan, fictionalizing the true story of Wright and his
mistress, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, that really got me interested
in the architect's life.)
Wright was born in 1867 and died in 1959 and spent much of his
time in the Mid-Western U.S. In his lifetime, he designed over
1,000 architectural projects, resulting in 500 completed
structures. In addition to architecture, Wright was an
accomplished interior designer, writer and educator.
The center of Wright's philosophy was organic architecture and he
was a leader of the Prairie School movement, eventually creating
the Usonian (a sort of synonym for American) home that later
inspired many ranch tract homes across the country. Wright is
also credited with coining the word carport.
Wright's style was completely different than what was happening
in the architecture world when he came of age and began designing
structures. He was creating open, organic homes with deep
connections to nature in the Victorian Era, which is
characterized by highly decorated structures with elaborate
ornamentation and features such as turrets, bays and odd angles.
Wright designed Fallingwater in the mid-1930s for the Kaufmann
family, who owned a popular department store in Pittsburgh. They
wished to use the house as a weekend residence to connect with
nature and leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind.
The main (and most unique) feature of Fallingwater is an active
waterfall running underneath the house. The calming sounds of
rushing water can be heard from nearly every room. Wright was
very concerned with bringing nature in and he accomplished this
magnificently at Fallingwater with special features like windows
that lead directly into the stone walls with no metal frame in
between.
Wright was particularly taken with Japanese art and architecture,
reflected in the design of Fallingwater and much of the art
displayed inside. In addition to Japanese art, the home boasts a
few pieces by Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera. Wright designed
most of the fixtures in the home, which was common in his
projects.
The house and adjoining guesthouse cost about $155,000 to build
at the time of construction (remember this was during the Great
Depression), which would translate to about $2.5 million today.
I particularly enjoyed the main living space of the house, which
features lots of low seating built into the walls and a huge
hearth that is partially formed out of a boulder that forms part
of the flooring in that part of the home. Next to the fireplace
rests a large cauldron that can swing over the fire and hold
mulled wine or hot cider during a party. Also in the living
space, a staircase descends right to the waterfall, creating a
deep connection between the structure and its surroundings.
One other notable feature of the house is the low ceilings.
Wright himself was not a tall man (most estimates put him
somewhere between 5'6" and 5'8") and the Kaufmanns weren't large
either. Wright designed the bedrooms to have low ceilings to
encourage people to go outside onto the many decks and terraces
attached to the home.
In 1991, the American Institute of Architects named Fallingwater
the "best all-time work of American architecture" and the
Smithsonian lists the home as one of the top 28 places to visit
before you die. The house is truly beautiful, utterly unique and
a true showpiece of American architecture. I highly recommend a
visit; you won't be disappointed. Not only is Fallingwater one of
the greatest houses ever built, but it's also one of the greatest
works of art that you'll ever encounter.
---
We aren't likely to see another architect of Wright's singular
genius anytime soon. But the world still needs new buildings. And
of course, new building construction is a key economic indicator
that analysts scrutinize when trying to divine the direction of
the economy. One construction company that's benefiting from the
rebounding economy is
Manitowoc (
MTW
)
, which was recommended in Cabot Top Ten Trader earlier this
year. Mike Cintolo had this to say about it in late March:
"While three out of every four big winners in market history are
growth stocks, one in four is a turnaround stock, usually a
dominant player in a stagnant field that suddenly comes to life
because of something new, such as new management, a new product,
or, in Manitowoc's case, new industry conditions. Specifically,
demand for the firm's cranes--used in huge, usually commercial
construction--went kaput from late-2008 through last year, but
now demand is picking up; in the fourth quarter, earnings came in
well ahead of estimates and sales were higher than a year ago for
the first time in eight quarters. More important, though, is that
the company's crane backlog jumped 28% from the prior quarter
(and total orders were up 70% from a year ago), convincing
investors that the long-awaited upturn in Manitowoc's business
had arrived. Historically, when the turn comes, business remains
robust for many quarters, if not longer; analysts see the bottom
line leaping to 65 cents a share this year and $1.42 next, which
could be conservative. The company also does good business in
food service equipment, but the upturn in cranes is why the stock
is so powerful.
"MTW rallied from a bear market low of 2 to a peak of 16 in the
spring of 2010. Then the stock built a huge base into January of
this year, before a great fourth quarter report blasted the stock
out of that base on enormous volume. It rallied above 21, and
after dipping below 18 during this correction, found strong
support at its 10-week moving average and is perched just a few
percent below its recent high. We think you can buy a little in
this range, use the 50-day line (around 17.5) as a stop and look
to average up when the market re-enters an uptrend."
You could buy MTW here and hope for the best (an especially dicey
option when you consider the market's performance this week), or
you could get Mike's latest advice on this and other top stocks
in
Cabot Top Ten Trader
.
---
In this week's Stock Market Analysis Video, Cabot China &
Emerging Markets Editor Paul Goodwin says it's been an
interesting week in the stock market, not a disaster, but there
has been weakness as earnings season grinds on. We don't have a
distinct sell signal on our China-Timer, but we are pulling in
our horns a bit. Stocks discussed:
Polypore (
PPO
), MercadoLibre (
MELI
), Green Mountain Coffee Roaster (
GMCR
), OpenTable (
OPEN
), Netflix (NFLX), Molycorp (MCP)
and
RealD (RLD)
.
Click here to watch the video!
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Elyse Andrews
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