E. Kaufmann; Helped Preserve Wright Creation

Edgar Kaufmann jr., a department store heir and architectural scholar who played a crucial role in creating and preserving what has been called Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece--”Fallingwater”--died of leukemia Monday.

The Associated Press reported that he was 79 when he died Monday at a New York City hospital.

Kaufmann studied with Wright at the Taliesin Fellowship in 1934 and introduced the fabled architect to Kaufmann’s father, Edgar, of Kaufmann Department Stores Inc. of Pittsburgh, which later merged with May Department Stores Co. The elder Kaufmann wanted to build a summer home on land he had acquired in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Completed in 1936, Fallingwater, with its terraces and cascading waterfall, is considered by many to be Wright’s greatest architectural design. Its cantilever construction, anchored in mountain rock, makes the graceful stone and white concrete house appear to be soaring over Bear Run, a stream in Fayette County.

In a poll several years ago by the American Institute of Architects’ Forum, the house was named the greatest example of American architectural design.

The elder Kaufmann died in 1955, leaving the house to his son, who used it as a summer residence until 1963, when he donated it and 1,500 surrounding acres to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. More than 120,000 people visited the house last year.