Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois


Related people
Michael Cadwell (was created by)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (architect)
Date
1945;1951
Description
The Farnsworth House was designed as a country retreat for Dr. Edith Farnsworth, a physician and friend of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The house is located in Plano, Illinois on the Fox River, approximately 50 miles southwest of Chicago. "[The Farnsworth House]'s significance is two-fold. First, as one of a long series of house projects, the Farnsworth House embodies a certain aesthetic culmination in Mies van der Rohe's experiment with this building type. Second, the house is perhaps the fullest expression of modernist ideals that had begun in Europe, but which were consummated in Plano, Illinois... Today, the house stands as an icon of the Modernist movement and the controversies surrounding this era. As historian Franz Schulze has remarked:"Certainly the house is more nearly temple than dwelling, and it rewards aesthetic contemplation before it fulfills domestic necessity." -- Farnsworth House website, http://www.farnsworthhouse.org/history.htm Keywords: contruction detail, window frame.
Style/Period
1940s (1940 - 1949)
1950s (1950 - 1959)
International Style
Modern
Material
steel frame construction
glass