Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater: A Case Study in Inside-the-Box Creativity

Abstract

This article traces the development of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, perhaps the most famous private dwelling in the world, as a case study in creative thinking. It has been reported that Wright conceived the house in one creative leap when he first visited the site. Wright supposedly did nothing further on the house until 9 months later, when he produced complete plans in 2 hours.This story can be taken as support for the claim that creative products come about through “outside-the-box” thinking, in which the creator goes far beyond the present to produce something completely new. However, examination of the historical record supports a model of creative thinking that assumes that creative products—even extraordinary products such as Fallingwater—come about in small steps firmly founded on the past, in this case the early work of Wright and of other architects. It is not necessary to postulate any extraordinary form of thinking to understand the development of Fallingwater. This case study thus supports others in providing evidence for the conclusion that creative thinking involves inside-the-box thinking: ordinary thought processes, operating on a rich database, bringing about extraordinary results.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Nora Newcombe for stimulating the writing of this article and for comments on an earlier version, and to Larry Stenberg and Thomas Gould for comments. Thanks are also due to Johanna Inman for her assistance in preparation of figures.