Rhododendrons and woodland surround Fallingwater. Their overlapping leaves and petals inspired the structure of Seymour's new ceramic chandeliers. Photo by Mike Seymour

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There are buildings we know first as images, and Fallingwater is among the most familiar. Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1936 house stretches over a waterfall at Mill Run, in the wooded hills of western Pennsylvania, its concrete terraces appearing to float above rock and water.

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For Vancouver artist Mike Seymour, the deeper impression came from being inside it, after the visitors had gone.

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Seymour studied architecture in Winnipeg before moving into an experimental practice spanning ceramics, lighting, glass and metalwork. On Aug. 29, he will present three chandeliers at Fallingwater as part of the house’s 90th-anniversary gala and the completion of a three-year renovation.

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Seymour holds a small-scale study of the glazed ceramic petals that will form his new ceiling-mounted chandeliers for Fallingwater. Photo by Mike Seymour

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The opportunity came through Facebook, a platform he rarely uses beyond community and farmers market updates. When an advertisement appeared for a residency run by Fallingwater and the nearby Touchstone Center for Craft, it seemed so precisely suited to him that he doubted it was real.

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“I thought it was a scam,” he says.

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Seymour called Touchstone, who he’d never heard of, and asked “is this competition real?”

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They said it was, and applications were closing in two days. Seymour says there were about 10,000 applicants. His proposal set out a simple idea: to reconnect his architectural training with his current work in craft. He was selected and had roughly four weeks to prepare.

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The three-week residency began with seven days at Fallingwater, followed by two weeks making at Touchstone, about 20 minutes away. Seymour arrived with thoughts of creating stone furniture, but his thinking shifted as he spent time there.

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Fallingwater receives around 1,500 visitors on a busy day, but at night Seymour could enter the house almost alone. Without the movement and conversation of a tour, its atmosphere became more apparent. Deep overhangs shade the interiors, making the house almost cave like, while polished sandstone floors gather and reflect the changing light.

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Fallingwater’s polished sandstone floor catches the light like the shallow river below, creating the sense that water continues through the house. Photo by Mike Seymour

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Those solitary hours also revealed the house as more than an architectural monument. Seymour noticed early Tiffany glass experiments and a collection assembled by a family (the Kaufmann family who Fallingwater was built for) engaged with art and design. Treating Fallingwater as a found site, rather than approaching it only through Wright’s reputation, allowed him to respond intuitively to the objects, materials and landscape around him, he says.

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The river, so dramatic in photographs, provided another surprise. In places, Seymour says, it is only about four inches deep. Its bed is formed from compressed sandstone with wavelike contours shaped in prehistory, creating an impression of much deeper water.