Paul Mayén


Paul Mayén was a Spanish architect and industrial designer known for his work at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.

Early years

Mayén was born on May 31, 1916, in La Línea de la Concepción, a town in Cádiz in Andalucia, Spain. He graduated from Cooper Union in New York City with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and from Columbia University with a master's degree during World War II.

Career

Mayén was an industrial designer, and following his graduation from Columbia, taught classes in advertising design at his alma mater, Cooper Union, and The New School, both in Manhattan.
His lamps, tables, and other furniture are featured in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and was the founder of Habitat, Intrex and Architectural Supplements, Inc.

Fallingwater

Mayén's partner, Edgar Kaufmann Jr., inherited the 1936 Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwater house, over Bear Run, in Stewart Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, after his father's death in 1955, continuing to use and share it as a mountain retreat until 1963. Kaufmann entrusted the Wright structures and several hundred acres of the surrounding pristine Laurel Highlands lands in the Allegheny Mountains to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy as an architectural house museum and conservation open space preserve, in memory of his parents.
From 1979 to 1981, Mayén oversaw the building of the Fallingwater pavilion, which houses the café, gift store, and visitor's center at Fallingwater.

Personal life

Mayén, who was gay, was partners with Edgar Kaufmann Jr. since the 1950s. In 1975, Mayén built a country house for himself and Kaufmann in Garrison, New York, on the east side of the Hudson River. Kaufmann died in 1989, and his ashes were scattered around the property at Fallingwater by Mayén.
Mayén died on November 3, 2000. His ashes were also scattered at Fallingwater in accordance with his wishes.