farnsworth house case study

Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe: A bond between the House and Nature

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is one of architecture’s residential projects. Whether it is his iconic statements “Less is more” and “God is in the details” or the famous Barcelona Pavilion and equally renowned Barcelona Chair , his presence borders on the mythic. The Farnsworth House in Illinois, US is a classic example of the International Style of architecture designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for Dr. Edith Farnsworth from 1949 to 1951.

Regarded as one of the pinnacle works of Mies van der Rohe ‘s style and philosophy, it is one of the world’s most widely recognized and studied structures constructed in the 20th century.

Built as a weekend retreat, the Farnsworth House is a platonic perfection of proportions and its simplicity gently placed in spontaneous nature in Plano, Illinois . On the outskirts of Chicago, in a 10-acre secluded wooded site with the Fox River to the south, the glass pavilion takes full advantage of relating to its natural surroundings, achieving Mies’ concept of a symbiotic relationship between the house and nature.

While Mies used the same vocabulary—steel, large expanses of plate glass, and stone at Farnsworth as he did for his other projects of the time, the house conveys a distinct feeling from his other work. Wrapped in white instead of an industrial black, small and intimate, set alone away from the city grid and gently lifted above a riverbank, Farnsworth House uniquely illustrates the softer side of Mies’ architecture. 

Between two levitating horizontal slabs, the boundary between inside and out is blurred, opened up by expansive glass walls, and a near absence of visible structural supports. The beauty of the house is exaggerated with Mies’ idea of tying the residence with its tranquil surroundings. His idea for shading and privacy was through the landscaping that was located on the private site. The clear glass walls create a sequence of lively reflections, including those of the surrounding trees, and people walking inside or outside of the house, layering them on top of one another, creating ever-changing visuals with each step taken around it. A solid inner core contains bathrooms and unsightly mechanicals. But the spaces for living flow freely into each other, and into the meadows and river beyond. 

Mies wanted the house to appear as light as possible on the land, and so he raised the house 5 feet 3 inches off the ground, allowing only the steel columns to meet the ground seamlessly. The house’s main structural support comprises eight white vertical I-beams, which connect the rectangular roof and floor slabs with floor-to-ceiling plate glass. The structure is suspended on those beams some 5 feet above the ground and more than 8 feet above the Fox River. A third of the slab is an open-air porch, and the only operable windows are two small hopper units at the eastern end in the bedroom area. The mullions act as structural support. 

The ground floor of the house is elevated, and wide steps slowly transcend effortlessly off the ground, as if they were floating up to the main entrance. Aside from walls in the center of the house enclosing bathrooms, the floor plan is open exploiting true minimalism. A central core contains all services, two bathrooms , a kitchen with a continuous stainless-steel countertop, a primavera wood living space, and a fireplace on the south side. Smoothness and continuity are also maintained in the details of the other surfaces of the house, from the floors to the wood panels. All evidence of seams and fastenings have been removed. 

A perfectionist mirage, Farnsworth House floats like a pavilion in a park, but its history has been beset by plagues, floods, and feuds. With the house constructed about 100 feet from the Fox River, Mies recognized the dangers of future flooding. He designed the house at an elevation that he believed would protect it from the highest predicted floods, which are anticipated every hundred years. In 1954 the river rose six feet above the one-hundred-year-mark and flooded the house. However, Mies could not predict the increase in water runoff caused by the development in the Chicago area which led to more floods. Current research states that the interior of the house has received floodwaters on 6 occasions, beginning in 1954 to just recently in 2008. 

Intended as a vacation home for the Chicago doctor, the house however lacked storage space, closets, and other necessities of full-time living, which the architect ignored in favor of an aesthetic perfectionism. Nonetheless, there are still many features that contribute to the beauty of the house. 

The man-made geometric form creates a relationship with the extraneous landscape surrounding it to exemplify “ Dwelling ” in its minimalistic state. The simplicity of the design, precision in detailing, and careful choice of materials made Mies’s building stand out from the mass of mid-century Modernism.

Trishla Chadha is driven by a persistent desire to learn and to inform. Besides working as a Junior Architect, she is also associated with an International social organization with the aim of empowering women in our society. She is particularly intrigued by the sensitivity of architecture towards nature and people, as well as discovering new aspects that enrich the spatial experience.

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Farnsworth House

Introduction.

Description

The absence of walls

Services core, resolution of the interior spaces, relationship with the body of water, static structure.

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Case Study: Farnsworth House

I studied Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe for its minimalist approach in three respects:

• Simple post-and-beam structure
• Use of neutral, subdued materials (eg. Mies's signature travertine)
• Emphasis on the surrounding landscape

These explorations were done by hand-drawn collage of orthographics and oblique views, as well as a partial replica model down to the construction of the roof and window frame system.

Status: Built Location: Plano, IL, US

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Case Study Analysis: Farnsworth House & The Glass House

Case Study Analysis: Farnsworth House & The Glass House Jenny Diaz

FARNSWORTH HOUSE Mies Van Der Rohe - Architect Edith Farnsworth - Client Plano Illinois Elevated (avoid flooding from near by river) Architecture & Nature A place to escape to and relax

49 Built 1949

51 Built 1951

GLASS HOUSE Philip Johnson - Architect Philip Johnson - Client New Canan Connecticut Planted on ground Brown brick & black steel frame A place to be comfortable as oneself

"Mies talks about "free space", but his space is very fixed". (3.13)

"Promoting the mystical idea that "less is more"...they are promoting unlivabiltiy, stripped-down emptiness, lack of storage space and therefroe lack of possessions". (3.13)

"The guest house appears to be a windowless bunker a defensible space of intimacy as well as a "closet". (3.22)

"This house with its four walls of glass, I feel like a prowling animal, always on the alert". (3.13)

"A form of exhibitionism". (3.17) "The house appeared to be a fish bowl in which his life was put on display for all to see". (3.22)

"I can't even put a clothes hanger in my house without considering how it affects everything from the outside". (3.13)

"The idea of a glass house, where somebody just might be looking-naturally, you don't want them to be looking. But what about it? That little edge of danger in being caught". (3.17)

"Farnsworth had very little of a "private life" to conceal: as a single woman, the only thing that could possibly be worth hiding was her night gown, the sign for her body". (3.16)

"The cylindrical brick chimney at the core of the glass house makes an obvious & clearly ironic reference to the architecture of the traditional American family home and to the sentimentalized view of domesticity". (3.22)

"Unlike Johnson's glass house, which features clusters of large and small objects throughout the interior and doorways on all four walls, the interior of the Farnsworth house in unrelenting in its ordered geometry - & this was something Farnsworth discovered only through living in the house over time". (3.17)

"For Johnson, who unlike Farnsworth had a sophisticated grasp of architectural language, there was no question that each element in the design had a carefully constructed meaning". (3.22)

"A bitterly fought struggle over who was, and who was not, a "normal" American, a member of a family, living life in the "right" way. Just as Edith Farnsworth confronted these issues, so did Philip Johnson". (3.21)

"Service core becomes a diagram of the house as a machine, the kitchen and the back-to-back bathrooms stand in a logical, utilitarian relationship to one another". (3.24)

"Metaphoric, discursive & picturesque, the domestic landscape encourage movement through the space". (3.24)

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• Farnsworth House

Farnsworth House: The Latest Architecture and News

Installation at the farnsworth house showcases original furniture of edith farnsworth.

After a prolonged closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Farnsworth House reopens its doors with a new exhibition entitled “ Edith Farnsworth Reconsidered ”, a temporary refurnishing of the country house to reflect its 1955 appearance. Focusing on Dr. Edith Farnsworth’s life and times, the exhibition aims to highlight the untold story of this woman.

• Read more »

Floodwaters Threaten Once More The Farnsworth House

Built in a flood plain along the Fox River, the Farnsworth House , designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is endangered again. Floodwaters are threatening the modernist house once more, as water levels are rising to reach the top of the house’s steel columns, covering its lower terrace.

Luftwerk and Iker Gil Install Light Intervention at the Farnsworth House

Geometry of light, is a multimedia intervention by Luftwerk in collaboration with Iker Gil , exhibited in October, during the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial , at the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois.

How an Artist Constructed a Wooden Replica of Mies' Farnsworth House

In December 2010, Manuel Peralta Lorca completed the work "Welcome Less Is More," a wooden reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe 's Farnsworth House that was installed inside the Patricia Ready Gallery in Santiago, Chile. This September, a new version of this work will be mounted in the hall of Santiago's Museum of Contemporary Art, under the name "Home Less is More." In the following story, the artist tells us about the process of reinterpreting this icon of modern architecture in wood and how a team of carpenters—who agreed to immerse themselves in the philosophy of Mies—was fundamental to completing the challenge.

Chicago Architecture Biennial Special Projects To Inhabit a Series of Architectural Landmarks

The Chicago Architecture Biennial and it's artistic directors, Johnston Marklee , have revealed a collection of Special Projects designed to harness the curatorial vision of the event—entitled Make New History —and bring it to a number of significant landmarks in the city and in it's surrounding area. Featuring a SO-IL and Ana Prvački collaboration, a Francois Perrin installation, a new performance artwork by Gerard & Kelly at the Farnsworth House , photographs by James Welling , and films by Gerard & Kelly, the projects will inhabit some Chicago's greatest "architectural gems."

Inside the Bizarre Personal Lives of Famous Architects

Famous architects are often seen as more enigma than person, but behind even the biggest names hide the scandals and tragedies of everyday life. As celebrities of a sort, many of the world's most famed architects have faced rumors and to this day there are questions about the truth of their private affairs. Clients and others in their studios would get a glimpse into an architect’s personal life, but sometimes the sheer force of personality that often comes with creative genius would prevent much insight. The fact remains, however, that these architects’ lives were more than the sum of their buildings.

"See You in Court!": 9 of Architecture’s Nastiest Lawsuits

What did Pritzker Prize winner Frank Gehry get when he designed the Stata Center, an exuberantly whimsical academic complex for MIT? A very large check, plus a major lawsuit , alleging negligence and breach of contract due to rampant leaks , mold, cracks, drainage problems and sliding ice. Sometimes the most inspired designs can go awry. And when they do, some clients lawyer up. Here are 9 fascinating examples.

The Story of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House to Become Hollywood Film

One of architecture’s greatest tales – the commission of Mies van der Rohe ’s seminal Farnsworth House – is set to receive the Hollywood treatment. As reported by Showbiz 411’s Roger Friedman, the story of the home’s construction will be taken on by actors Jeff Bridges (as the architect) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Dr. Edith Farnsworth), who last teamed up for 2009’s acclaimed Crazy Heart.

Hydraulic Stilts Considered to Protect Farnsworth House

In recent years, Mies van der Rohe 's famous glass-walled Farnsworth House has been under a grave threat from flooding by the Fox River which runs right past it. In the past 18 years, the house has been flooded three times, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage, and now its owners the National Trust for Historic Preservation are considering plans for a permanent solution - among which is a plan to install hydraulic stilts which would lift the entire house out of harm's way in the event of a flood.

Read more about the plans after the break

The Glass House, an architectural play

Two of the most iconic projects from the modern movement built in the US take part in a play by June Finfer, directed by Evan Bergman. The design and building of Mies van der Rohe ’s Farnsworth House and Philip Johnson ’s Glass House is the background for the penetrating dramatic plot that entwines the epic conflict between artist and patron. The Glass House explores the classic struggle of ambition, love and betrayal.

Post Performance Talks by Paul Goldberger (Architectural Critic and Author), Barry Bergdoll ( MoMA ), Annabelle Selldorf (Architect), Christy MacLear (Executive Director of Philip Johnson Glass House ), Dietrich Neumann (Architectural Educator), Whitney French (Executive Director of Farnsworth House ) and Barry Wood (Architect).

Dates and more info after the break.

The Story of the Farnsworth House

Photograph of the Farnsworth House. Architect Mies van der Rohe. Photograph copyright by Mitchell Rocheleau

WHAT IS THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE?

The Farnsworth House (1945 - 1951) is an iconic work of modern American architecture. It was designed by renowned modern architect Mies van der Rohe in 1937 and was the first home he designed in America. The house sits in Plano, Illinois, about 1.5 hours southwest of Chicago. 

I had the good fortune to visit the home in January of 2023. I studied the building through drawings and photographs during my undergraduate and graduate studies. However, seeing the building in person, experiencing the spaces, and closely observing the details gave me a new appreciation for this seminal work of architecture. 

The Farnsworth house was designed to be a vacation retreat for Edith Farnsworth. It is a floating steel box wrapped on all sides with glass with an attached floating terrace. Inside is a sleeping area, living area, dining area, kitchen, two bathrooms, and a mechanical/storage closet. So why is a small structure outside of Chicago worthy of worldwide architectural acclaim? 

WHY IS THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE IMPORTANT?

The Farnsworth house is important because it challenged the idea of a conventional home. Simply put, it was so starkly different from homes that people were familiar with at that time. The home embodied the philosophy and language of modern architecture down to every detail. It was one of the purest examples of modern architecture that had been realized and constructed up to that point in history. 

In the 1930s, conventional homes were built with wood framing and clad with brick, wood siding, or plaster to create a solid enclosure with a series of "punches" for doors and windows. A pitched roof, clad in shingles, was added to protect from the elements, and a series of details would be applied that refer to a particular time in history, such as Victorian, Tudor, or Queen Ann. 

The Farnsworth House did not refer to a historical period and did not attempt to create an enclosure. It used structural steel framing and glass to create the home’s envelope. Wrapping the house in glass reduces the feeling of enclosure and dissolves the boundary between inside and outside. It has a flat roof keeping the silhouette of the building to a simple rectangle absent of any angels or ornamentation. 

Typical homes of the day had separate rooms; each used for a different purpose. A conventional home would have a family room, dining room, formal living room, and kitchen with a series of separate bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. 

The Farnsworth house ignored this convention. It is a single open space, and "rooms" are created by furniture or dividing casework except for two bathrooms and a utility closet which are within enclosed rooms. The primary "bedroom" is within the large open space, separated only by furniture pieces and casework. 

Mies believed that his architecture "must be objective, impersonal, quiet and simple space, a backdrop against which each individual and all human life in its great complexities can develop freely —and develop in changing ways, from generation to generation, long after such striking clients as Dr. Edith Farnsworth are gone." (Architectural Forum, The Magazine of Building)

WHO WAS MIES VAN DER ROHE?

Mies van der Rohe was an architect from Aachen, Germany. Mies recalls visiting and marveling at a large cathedral built in the era of Charlemagne near his home in Aachen. It is safe to assume that the presence of this cathedral catalyzed an interest in architecture early in Mies' life. 

Mies never took a formal class on Architecture. He was trained as a stone mason in his hometown and worked in his family's masonry business. He was introduced to construction and the importance of craftsmanship at an early age. 

Early in his career, Mies worked mostly on residential architecture, where he tried to refine his philosophy and discover an architectural identity. His career was put on hold when he was recruited into the German army at the outset of World War I. Fortunately, he was discharged from the military due to appendicitis and escaped to the United States just before the war started using his brother's passport. 

After landing in America, Mies began practicing and teaching architecture in the United States. He would develop a lasting and influential career, embedding the language of modern architecture into American culture. 

WHO WAS EDITH FARNSWORTH?

Edith Farnsworth was a physician practicing in Chicago. She was from a wealthy family and was exposed to many opportunities as a young woman. She studied violin, music theory, and poetry which allowed her to develop an appreciation for the arts and architecture. 

In 1934 she entered Northwestern University Medical school and achieved her MD in 1939. When many male physicians were recruited for WWII, it allowed her to build a lucrative business in Chicago. She would publish several papers and make significant strides in her field; however, today, she is primarily known for the home Mies designed for her. 

EDITH AND MIES MEET

A mutual friend introduced Edith to Mies at a dinner party one evening. After dinner, Edith mentioned she had a nine-acre plot of land near Plano, Illinois, bordering the Fox River. She was looking for an architect to design and build a small cottage. A portion of the site was at a lower elevation near the river in a flood zone, which would become an area of contention down the road. She had purchased the lot for $500 per acre and was ready to start designing her home. After dinner and a few drinks, they continued discussing the project. 

Mies and Edith would begin taking several weekend trips to the site together, discussing preliminary design concepts, materials, and building siting. In earlier conversations, Mies mentioned that "Here (the site), where everything is beautiful, and privacy is no issue, it would be a pity to erect an opaque wall between the outside and the inside. So I think we should build the house of steel and glass; in that way, we'll let the outside in." This quote gives a glimpse into Mies' vision for the home. 

Mies and Edith would work well together at the beginning of the relationship. They were both deeply intellectual people and enjoyed sharing thoughts on philosophy and poetry. Many have suspected an affair occurred between the two, despite Mies still being married to a woman in Germany. However, through the process, tensions grew. Countless accusations, apparent cost overruns, miscommunications, and disagreements resulted in an unsalvageable relationship.

THE "AGREEMENT" and LITIGATION OF THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE

On the surface, the Farnsworth House is a pristine work of architecture with spiritual purity. However, the story behind the home is riddled with conflict, building defects, and litigation. A fantastic book titled Broken Glass: Mies Van Der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight Over a Modernist Masterpiece by Alex Beam dives into detail about the conflict between Edith Farnsworth and Mies. 

Unfortunately, no formal agreement for the project was made between Mies and Edith. This was a significant mistake by both parties and would be at the core of the legal dispute between them. The unwritten agreement was that Mies would design the home without charging professional architectural services. When Mies could not find a contractor willing to build the home, he also assumed the role of general contractor. It was stated that Mies provided Edith with cost estimates and spending reports throughout the project however, Edith alleged that this was untrue. The lack of formal paperwork created a "he said, she said" series of accusations.

Mies and Edith ended up suing each other.  Edith would accuse Mies of not involving her in design decisions, exceeding the construction estimate, and lack of professional competency. Mies would accuse Edith of non-payment. The event was professionally humiliating for Mies and widely published. However, when photographs of Edith in Mies’ office reviewing drawings during a design meeting were presented as evidence, her accusations and credibility were significantly compromised. Mies would prevail in the suit and be owed only a few thousand dollars as compensation. 

The victory would not alleviate Mies’ distaste for Edith or the project. It was said that Mies never actually saw the finished home. However, there were accounts of drivers picking him up in Plano years after the completion of the home.

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE

The house was primarily constructed from steel and glass. Travertine stone tiles cladded the floor and entry surface. The frames of the roof and floor are constructed using 15" structural steel C channels turned with their flat side out to expose the cleaner side of the member. A total of eight steel columns W8 x 48 are welded to the C channels and create the vertical support system of the house. The columns span vertically from the roof, down to the foundation system at grade level. All the structural steel members are painted white. The house’s interior calculates at 1,540 square feet, with an additional 676 square feet of exterior floor space on the porch totaling 2,216 square feet. 

DETAILS OF THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE

The elevated level of detailing and care that Mies exhibited in the home was something that I had not fully appreciated until my visit. Mies took great care to minimize the exposure of steel bolts, rivets, or welds in the steel fabrication. Instead of using exposed standard bolted connections, Mies used concealed custom rivets and filet welding to hide any visible connections. Although more labor-intensive and costly, this technique allows the structure to be free of any visible bolts.

Mies intentionally terminated the eight steel supporting posts about four inches below the top of the roof plane. When viewing the home from the exterior, it was critical to Mies that the posts not extend up past the roof plane as they would disrupt the purity of the rectangular roof line. 

Visiting the home in winter gave me a great appreciation for the radiant floor system that Mies designed and installed. He allowed several inches under the interior travertine to run copper pipes that circulate warm water. Although it takes some time for the water to circulate and heat the floors, it is a great way to condition the house in that it is quiet, and takes relatively small amounts of energy to operate. 

A fascinating detail revealed while touring the home was the height of the wood casework in the main living space. Mies understood that wood did not play well with sunlight. He knew that if he brought the wood casework down to the floor, a gradient of bleaching would happen on the vertical face of the casework from the sun. By lifting the cabinets off the ground to the line where the winter solstice hits, he would avoid this problem. This also allowed for an additional storage cavity under the casework where firewood could be stored. It was also a space where Edith Farnsworth would store her suitcases when she visited for the weekend, as there was minimal storage in the rest of the house. 

The way that Mies detailed the floor outlets in the project is also worthy of note. Most outlets would have to go on the floor in a glass house with no exterior walls. As stated above, Mies refused to clutter his ceilings with downlighting, he not only did not like peppering the ceiling with apertures, but he also did not like the effect of downlighting on people. He believed that lighting was best at floor level and accomplished with lamps. For the lamps, he would need floor outlets. 

Photograph of floor outlets in the Farnsworth House. Architect Mies van der Rohe. Photograph copyright by Mitchell Rocheleau

The single utility core below the house. Because the house was elevated, any water pipes, gas, electrical, or sewer that served the house needed to rise vertically up into the home inconspicuously. Mies solution for this was to condense all the utility runs into one single cylinder under the home. The cylindrical core is painted black and imperceptible when viewing the house from the exterior. 

WHY WAS THE HOUSE ELEVATED OFF OF THE GROUND?

The home was lifted off the ground to accommodate for the potential flooding of the Fox River. Mies had contacted the Illinois State Water Survey to inquire about the highest flood stages of the area. They could not provide any historical data on water elevations, so Mies was forced to contact local farmers in the area and ask them to recall the highest flood elevations they remember seeing. This is how the decision was made to elevate the house off the ground exactly 5 feet 3 inches. 

Over the years, there have been several floods in the home, the worst being in 1996 and 2008. There have been others that breached the elevated terrace but thankfully subsided. With each flood, portions of the home needed to be repaired and reconstructed. 

THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE COMPARED TO THE BARCELONA PAVILION

Before visiting the Farnsworth House, I visited and studied Mies’ Barcelona Pavilion in depth. It is worth comparing the two structures to see Mies’ development as an architect. The Farnsworth house showed me another side of Mies and, in many ways, a more mature architect. In the Farnsworth commission, Mies was forced to take the home to another level technically and functionally beyond what the Barcelona Pavilion brief required. Without a doubt, the Farnsworth brief was more technically demanding because it would need to serve as a functioning vacation home. It would need to address items such as flooding, thermal barrier issues with the extreme temperature fluctuations of the local climate, heating, and cooling of the house, and the demands of what would turn out to be a high-maintenance client. 

The major difference between the two structures is the expression of structural steel in the Farnsworth House. In the Barcelona Pavilion , there is no exposed structural steel. Walls, columns, roofs and floors are all wrapped in a finish material. In the Farnsworth House, it seems that Mies’ philosophy of purity was further refined, in that the majority of the structural members of the home are expressed and simply painted white. For me, this shows a more refined and pure expression of Mies’ philosophies. He was able to strip away one more layer in the Farnsworth House, thus getting closer to an irreducible minimum.

IMITATIONS OF THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE

The Farnsworth House catalyzed many imitations, most notably Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan (1949-1950). Although the Farnsworth House was completed one year after Philip Johnson's Glass House, Johnson had seen the design and model for the Farnsworth at a gallery opening. Johnson would clearly and shamelessly mimic many of the characteristics of the Farnsworth House.

THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE TODAY

Edith Farnsworth owned the house until 1971, when Peter Palumbo purchased it. The Palumbo family would restore the home twice during the three decades they owned it. In 2003, the house was sold to The Friends of the Farnsworth House and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Farnsworth House has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and operates as a museum open to the public for touring and education. 

TOURING THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE

If you are touring the Farnsworth House, I recommend renting a car in Chicago and driving to Plano. Unfortunately, I did not rent a car and had to pay exorbitant Uber fees to get to Plano. In Plano, no Uber drivers were available to take me back to Chicago. This resulted in me having to pay my driver a separate $200 fee so he would wait in the parking lot and drive me back to the city after the tour ended. Although it was an expensive trip, I am grateful for being able to see this iconic work of Modern Architecture. 

Beam, Alex. Broken Glass: Mies Van Der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight over a Modernist Masterpiece . Random House, 2021.

Modern architecture since 1900 William Curtis - Phaidon - 2013

Schulze, Franz, and Edward Windhorst. Mies van Der Rohe. University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Farnsworth House Tour presented by a docent at Farnsworth House

Architectural Forum, The Magazine for Building - 1951

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Farnsworth House

Farnsworth house by ludwig mies van der rohe is one of the paradigmatic residences of 20th-century architecture. here its history, from the complicated relationship with the client edith farnsworth to the recent floods..

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ’s Farnsworth House, an extraordinary example of open conflict between the autonomy of the architectural language and the proposed housing model, is one of the most emblematic residences of the architecture of the 20th century. Mies van der Rohe’s transparency and formal rigor meet in a forest near Plano, Illinois, the background against which the white and slender structure of the house stands out.

Farnsworth House, one of the most representative works of Mies’ American period, was designed between 1945 and 1950 as a weekend house for Edith Farnsworth, a highly educated and influential woman from Chicago. The building was immediately acclaimed by those architects who recognized themselves in the modernity of the formal perfection, and welcomed it as a manifesto of the renewed rigor of the German master's architectural language. At the same time, that same perfection was interpreted by some people, including Frank Lloyd Wright , as the selfish side of modern architecture. The transparent surfaces of the house represented an assault to the privacy that on the contrary the traditional home aimed to protect, a break from all those traditional housing models considered timeless and, for some, even a silent invitation to voyeurism. This second position was revived by the legal events that saw the client and architect on opposite sides, even before the construction works were even completed.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Casa Farnsworth, Plano, Illinois, Stati Uniti d'America, 1951: immagini di Darren Bradley, Jack E. Boucher (1971) e disegni di rilievo

Photo Darren Bradley

Photo Jack E. Boucher, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, 1971. Public domain via Wikicommons

Elizabeth Milnarik, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey. Public domain via Wikicommons

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe moved to the United States in the late 1930s. He settled in Chicago, where he accepted the position to head the architecture school at the Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology), whose campus he redesigned between 1939 and 1958. In Modern Architecture: A Critical History , Kenneth Frampton  notes that, thanks to this double presence in the city both as an academic and a professional, Mies’ impact in the United States was amplified. The monumental scale of the technique that he took to its extreme consequences in the US “haunted the architecture scene in Chicago from then on”, reverberating in the work of major architects such as Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and C.F. Murphy.

The project for the Farnsworth House appeared publicly for the first time in 1947, when the MoMA  displayed a first model at the monographic exhibition on Mies van der Rohe curated by Philip Johnson . The building, of which Mies was both architect and builder, was completed in 1951 in a flood-prone area near the Fox River.

On a purely and strictly architectural-constructive level, the house looks like a podium, a floor and a roof in their most abstract form: three horizontal rectangular travertine slabs that seem to float 1.5 meter above the ground, the two largest measuring 23 x 9 meters. Confined on two thirds of the larger slabs, the 140 square meters of interior space are totally open, interrupted only by the wooden volume of the bathroom, and enclosed by a glass box. The only shielding element is a natural, white shantung silk curtain. The steel structure is made up of slender, white, I-shaped pillars, placed 6.7 metres apart from each other.

The building reinterprets the architectural type of the one-story rectangular house, empty on the inside and therefore unitary, like the Crown Hall (1952-56) on the IIT campus or the 50 x 50 House (1951, never built). Unlike the Crown Hall, in the two residences the pillars are located on the outer edge of the supporting slabs, allowing the glass to easily slide around the perimeter of the interior. These elements, prefabricated according to American standards, are a prime indicator of the growing distance between the American and European production of Mies, as Kenneth Frampton points out. In Europe, in fact, the architect often made use of the generic cruciform section pillar, as in the cases of the Barcelona Pavilion (1929) or the Tugendhat house in Brno.

Two of Mies’ most famous catchphrases (notoriously hermetic) found their application in this house. The first is the interpretation of architecture as "the will of an epoch translated into space", from which the use of the prefabricated pillar, for example, derives: a growing idealization that is identified with the construction methods of the historical era. The second is, more than the "less is more", the beinache nichts, the "almost nothing" created by Philip Johnson, who designed the Glass House (1949) following the example of this house. Farnsworth House is an exquisitely organized project made of a few essential elements combined following an impeccable logic.

If someone lived in the Farnsworth house, they would wake up in the morning and pick up all their clothes from the floor. They’d be careful where they leave their stuff.

Frank Gehry on Domus n.745, January 1993

However, the history of the residence would be incomplete without mentioning its client, nephrologist Edith Farnsworth (1903-1977), and her relationship with Mies van der Rohe. The two met in the United States, under unknown circumstances. Over the years, the two maintained a relationship characterized by a lively intellectual exchange. Many people have speculated on their relationship and assumed that the two had an affair, even though there is no proof of this in Farnsworth’s documents and diaries and supposed that Farnsworth was embittered because of a failed love story. For his part, Mies van der Rohe had left his wife and children in Germany and started an affair with sculptress Lora Marx when he arrived in the United States. While designing the house, the two sued each other, so much so that the final touches of the building were made by William Dunlap, following Mies van der Rohe’s drawings.

What clearly emerges from Farnsworth’s diaries - reread by Nora Wendl in the essay Uncompromising Reasons for Going West: A Story of Sex and Real Estate, Reconsidered (published in Thresholds magazine, no. 43) - is the fact that it was difficul to lead a serene life in a transparent house, paid twice as much as initially planned, while having to deal with the unwanted attention of prying eyes, visiting architects, and the press.

"(...) most architects think that the environment is determined entirely by the structure, without the need for anything else. The extreme and purest example of this idea is perhaps Farnsworth House by Mies Van der Rohe, where a building is brought to a maximum of perfection and constructive simplicity and where the environment is fully identified with that perfection, i.e. with the image of an idea closed and finished in itself

Ettore Sottsass jr. on Domus n.299, October 1954

The House received praise but also harsh criticisms, from Frank Lloyd Wright to House Beautiful magazine. In the May 1953 issue, in an interview called Report on the American Battle Between Good and Bad Modern Houses conducted by Joseph A. Barry, Edith Farnsworth states: “Do I feel implacable calm? The truth is that in this house with its four walls of glass I feel like a prowling animal, always on the alert. I am always restless. Even in the evening. I feel like a sentinel on guard day and night” and “I don’t keep a garbage can under my sink. Do you know why? Because you can see the whole ‘kitchen’ from the road on the way here that would spoil the appearance of the whole house. (…) Mies talks about his ‘free space’: but his space is very fixed. (…) Any arrangement of furniture becomes a major problem, because the house is transparent, like an X-ray”. The question arises as to whether a legendary story of the failure of a romantic relationship - as some like to believe - is enough to justify the disagreement between the two. Rather, the real failure was that of a much more banal relationship: the one between an architect who built a manifesto and a client whose needs weren’t met.

To understand why in Farnsworth House you can only hang one painting, put one photograph on top of the closet... To understand why architects like Mies are forced to lie, to lie in their projects, is to understand Nietzsche’s quote: ‘we have art in order that we do not die of the truth.’

Eduardo Souto de Moura on Domus n.972, September 2013

In 1969, Edith Farnsworth sold her house to English property developer and art collector Planoa Lord Peter Palumbo, and in 1972 she retired to Italy, where she spent the last years of her life. The house was disastrously flooded in 1996 and subsequently restored in 1999. From Palumbo, the house passed into the hands of a group of preservationists supported by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2003, later becoming a National Historic Landmark for the US Interior Department. The house is elevated 1.50 meter above a flood plain, but in May 2020 this proved not to be enough to save it from floods, so today a strategy to save Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s masterpiece is being developed.

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When Mies van der Rohe Went on Trial

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By James Barron

• March 17, 2020

BROKEN GLASS Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth and the Fight Over a Modernist Masterpiece By Alex Beam

The case that animates “Broken Glass” isn’t a legal thriller with turncoat mobsters or burned-out ambulance chasers, although one lawyer, accused of coaching a witness, did thunder “liar,” preceded by an expletive. The case was instead about a small house and the tensions between an architect and his client, the seemingly mundane matters of ever-escalating costs and a spectacularly uncooperative roof. (It leaked during the trial.)

The house wasn’t just any old house by any old architect, though. It was Mies van der Rohe’s exquisite Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill., completed in 1951. This was the glass house that launched a thousand others, most famously the one Philip Johnson designed for himself in Connecticut.

Mies-ians know the story, which Alex Beam tells without getting sidetracked by architectural arcana or excessive gossip-mongering. He has at once a lot of material to draw on — and almost nothing at all. The trial transcript filled more than 3,000 pages. But the proceedings involved fees and payments and design decisions, not what was really at issue, which, arguably, was the client’s broken heart.

The client was a well-connected Chicago physician named Edith Farnsworth. She paid a steep price. She had intended to spend $8,000 to $10,000 (somewhere in the neighborhood of $110,000 in today’s dollars) to have the house built. After that proved unrealistic and Mies called $40,000 “cheap,” the bill topped $70,000 (more than $680,000 now) and Mies sued for his fee. Farnsworth countersued, alleging, among other things, design problems. She came to call the house “my Mies-conception.” “Mies-stake” might be more like it.

But first came the coup de foudre. Introduced to the taciturn Mies at a dinner party in 1945, Farnsworth said she was looking to build a weekend house. She asked Mies if “some young man in your office” could design something for her. Hearing Mies say he would tackle the job himself (after he had uttered almost nothing during the meal) was, for Farnsworth, as powerful as “a storm, a flood or other act of God.” Beam says that 1946 and 1947 were the wunderjahren of their relationship: Mies’s longtime girlfriend Lora Marx had called a time out to join Alcoholics Anonymous and “Edith assumed the role of favorite in Mies’s life.” By the time Mies took the stand at the trial, in 1952, things had clearly cooled. He testified that he had told her at the dinner party that he didn’t usually bother with small houses, but that “if it could be fine and interesting,” then he would do it. What he meant by “interesting” was, of course, left unsaid.

They picnicked at the site and put stakes in the ground while living in what Beam calls “a world of unusual intellectual and spiritual intensity.” That didn’t last. Mies went back to Lora Marx (and also took up with another client). By 1948, according to Beam, Farnsworth was “not a girlfriend, mistress or lover” anymore.

But she was a client, and after Mies and his underlings turned ideas and sketches into an actual structure she could spend time in, she found it troublesome. She and Mies tangled over curtains and screens. A closet? Not in that house. Mies told her, according to the British peer who bought it from her in the 1960s: “It’s a weekend house. You only need one dress. Hang it on a hook on the back of the bathroom door.” (Eventually Mies relented and designed a closet.) Farnsworth sweltered in the summertime because Mies gave her only one door and the smallest of openable windows, and no air conditioning.

Beam’s thorough and thoughtful account is both a knowing biography of an object — the house — and of its two principals, the well-documented Mies and the widely overlooked Farnsworth. Fortunately for Beam’s purposes, Farnsworth left an unpublished memoir. But Beam, a columnist for The Boston Globe who has written books on the Mormon founder Joseph Smith and on McLean Hospital, concludes that Farnsworth “isn’t always a reliable narrator.” At the trial, Farnsworth lost on most of the “findings of fact.” The lawyers eventually worked out a settlement of $2,500, a trivial amount, all things considered.

The Mies biographer Franz Schulze, who died last year, wrote that “it is simplistic to say that Farnsworth wanted the house and Mies, and Mies wanted the house and the next client.” Beam makes clear that their relationship was complicated. But sometimes, the simplistic explanation actually makes the most sense.

James Barron, a metro reporter for The Times, is the author, most recently, of “The One-Cent Magenta: Inside the Quest to Own the Most Valuable Stamp in the World.”

BROKEN GLASS Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth and the Fight Over a Modernist Masterpiece By Alex Beam Illustrated. 352 pp. Random House. $28.

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Urban Greening as a Response to Societal Challenges. Toward Biophilic Megacities (Case Studies of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, Russia)

• First Online: 17 March 2023

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• Diana Dushkova 8 ,
• Maria Ignatieva 9 &
• Irina Melnichuk 10  

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The population density in megacities is continuously increasing, resulting in a reduction of green spaces and a deterioration in the urban environment quality. Urban green is often being replaced by parking places, shopping centers, and service enterprises. This chapter examines the efforts of two megacities in Russia—Moscow and Saint Petersburg—to organize sustainable greening solutions for their residential areas using new achievements in landscape design theory and practice, such as the concept of the biophilic city. The chapter analyzes the history of greening strategies and discusses the concept of urban green infrastructure and its implementation in both Russian megacities. The chapter presents an assessment of the current state of urban green spaces and the most recent master plans and how these cities are facing and responding to modern societal challenges. The results of an analytical review of the most successful urban greening projects in Moscow and Saint Petersburg are presented as well. The economic and climatic features of the urban green areas and their architectural and planning features are considered, along with strategies for further development of the urban green spaces in both cities, aiming to address the new principles of biophilic cities.

• Urban green spaces
• Greening strategies
• Biophilic cities
• Societal challenges
• Saint Petersburg

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) project “Mathematical-cartographic assessment of medico-ecological situation in cities of European Russia for their integrated ecological characteristics” (2018–2020) under Grant number No 18-05-406 00236/18 and by the Horizon 2020 Framework Program of the European Union project “Connecting Nature” under Grant Agreement No 730222.

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Dushkova, D., Ignatieva, M., Melnichuk, I. (2023). Urban Greening as a Response to Societal Challenges. Toward Biophilic Megacities (Case Studies of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, Russia). In: Breuste, J., Artmann, M., Ioja, C., Qureshi, S. (eds) Making Green Cities. Cities and Nature. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73089-5_25

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The roommate said "she looked out of her bedroom but did not see anything when she heard the comment about someone being in the house," the documents said. "She opened her door a second time when she heard what she thought was crying coming from Kernodle's room."

The roommate "then said she heard a male voice say something to the effect of 'it's ok, I'm going to help you,'" according to the documents.

The roommate said she opened her door again after she heard the crying -- and then saw a "figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her," who she described as "5'10" or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows," and who "walked past" her "towards the back sliding glass door" as the roommate stood in "frozen shock," according to a police affidavit.

Who were the victims?

Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21, were lifelong best friends and inseparable. Goncalves was set to graduate in December 2022 and move to Texas.

Goncalves' sister, Alivea Goncalves, considered Mogen a sister, too. She said she was comforted by the fact that the best friends were in the same bed together in their final moments.

"If I couldn't have been there to hold their hands and to take that pain from them, at least they had each other," she told ABC News.

The two other victims were 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin.

Chapin was a triplet. His brother and sister also attend the University of Idaho.

Chapin and Kernodle were the "perfect pair" who had an "unstoppable, loving relationship," a surviving roommate said in a statement in December.

"They both would look at each other with so much love," she said.

Pieces of evidence

After the victims were discovered, authorities reviewed surveillance video from the area and saw the suspect's white Hyundai Elantra go by the victims' house three times, before entering the area for a fourth time at 4:04 a.m, according to the affidavit.

Police said they traced the car's travel that night back to nearby Pullman, Washington, where the suspect lived while attending Washington State.

Kohberger's phone was tracked heading to Moscow before the attack and as the driver of the white Elantra returned to Pullman. However, the phone was off from 2:47 a.m. to 4:48 a.m., which "is consistent with Kohberger attempting to conceal his location during the quadruple homicide," the document said.

MORE: Idaho authorities probe Amazon 'click activity' for knives possibly connected to college killings

His phone was near the victims' house at least 12 times before the murders, at least as far back as August, the document said.

DNA from the suspect was also recovered on a knife sheath left on Mogen's bed, according to the documents.

Where does the case stand?

Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The former Ph.D. student declined to offer a plea at his arraignment in May, so the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

MORE: Trial for Idaho college killings suspect Bryan Kohberger delayed indefinitely

Kohberger's lawyers have said their client wasn't in the home where the homicides occurred and was driving around alone that night.

In August, Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial, indefinitely delaying what was supposed to be an Oct. 2 start date.

A new trial date has not been set.

What possible hurdles are ahead during trial?

The DNA discovered on the button snap of the knife sheath that was found near Mogen's body is a critical linchpin for the prosecution in what is a largely circumstantial case.

That DNA, authorities argued, undeniably links Kohberger to the crime scene, saying that DNA "showed a statistical match" with a cheek swab taken directly from Kohberger after his arrest.

Kohberger's attorneys have attempted to cast doubt on the strength of investigators' evidence and whether it pointed irrefutably to just their client, including the DNA. The defense has repeatedly asked for more information on the genealogical analyses used to zero in on Kohberger, and have pushed back on investigators' analysis that the DNA is a statistical match.

Kohberger's attorneys also highlight what they called a "total lack of DNA evidence" from the victims in Kohberger's home or car.

"There are so many layers that make this an extraordinary case -- and the defense is going to attack any aspect of it that they see as vulnerable," David Calviello, a former New Jersey prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney, told ABC News in August. "It makes sense for them to take shots at how certain evidence was presented to the grand jury -- whether there were missed steps, cut corners, chain of custody problems, contamination -- or not. "

The knife used in the murders has not been recovered.

A series of now-unsealed search warrant documents show investigators have sought records of Amazon purchases and click history data for an Amazon customer including "all detailed customer click activity pertaining to knives and accessories," as well as a long list of information that could flesh out the customer's full shopping movements and interests on the site, like items that were wish-listed or saved for later. If prosecutors can link Kohberger to the purchase of a knife that could have been used in the killings, experts say that could help bolster their case.

What will happen to the house?

The University of Idaho announced in February that the house where the four students were killed would be torn down, with university President Scott Green calling it "a healing step."

In June, a university spokesperson said the school planned to demolish the house before students returned to campus in the fall.

In July, the university announced a sudden halt to the demolition plans as they removed asbestos and lead from the home -- and amid objections from some of the victims' families who expressed concern that demolishing the house before Kohberger's trial could cause unanticipated problems for prosecutors as they try to secure a guilty verdict.

About two weeks after Kohberger waived his speedy right to a trial in August, university officials decided they would hold off on tearing down the home until at least the end of the fall semester, which ends in mid-December.

With no new trial date set, prosecutors asked the University of Idaho for access to the house.

The university said FBI agents would be at the house on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 "to get documentation to construct visual and audio exhibits and a physical model of the home."

"While the university still intends to demolish the home, it will not be done this semester," the university said on Oct. 31.

The families

Ethan Chapin, who was a triplet, had been planning his 21st birthday with his siblings "forever," his parents said. Last month, his brother, Hunter, and sister, Maizie, turned 21 without him.

As the Chapins face one year without Ethan, they said they plan on acknowledging Nov. 13 with a private fundraiser for their foundation, Ethan's Smile Foundation, to help provide scholarships to post-high school students so that they can follow their dreams. The Chapins said they can't think of a better way to honor their son than to support education.

"Ethan stood for love, kindness, laughter and loyalty," his mother, Stacy Chapin, told ABC News. "He was the very best."

Kaylee Goncalves' dad, Steve Goncalves, said Kaylee's younger siblings are now grappling with their own birthdays. He said "they don't want to be older than their sister."

To Steve Goncalves, Nov. 13 is not an anniversary.

"This is more like a memorial -- some type of an event that you have to look at and think about, but it's not something that you ever look forward to," he told ABC News.

"My daughter has allowed me to meet people across the world through her life and memory and her beauty. And I'll thank her one day when I see her," Steve Goncalves said. "I'll tell her how much she impacted the world and how proud of her I am."

FOLLOW THE PODCAST: " The King Road Killings: An Idaho Murder Mystery " from ABC News, available on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or your preferred podcast player.

ABC News' Kayna Whitworth, Nick Cirone and Timmy Truong contributed to this report.

Related Topics

• Idaho College Murders

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