Farnsworth House
The Edith Farnsworth House is a historic house museum along the Fox River near Plano, Illinois, United States. Completed in 1951, it was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the International Style and built as a weekend retreat for the nephrologist and physician Edith Farnsworth. It is one of three private residences Mies designed in the U.S. and is cited as a major modernist work. The house is raised above the floodplain, with a minimalist exterior and a mostly open plan interior. The surrounding estate also includes a visitor center and exhibit gallery. The estate is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Farnsworth bought the site in the mid-1940s and asked Mies to design a house there after meeting him in 1945. Despite flooding concerns, Mies decided to build the house elevated above the Fox River floodplain. After extensive delays, work began in 1949, and Farnsworth moved in during December 1950. Mies and Farnsworth's once-cordial relationship deteriorated over the project's cost increases, and they sued each other in 1951, prompting a years-long legal dispute. Though the original design had numerous flaws and struggled to be energy efficient, Farnsworth owned it until 1972. The next owner, the British nobleman Peter Palumbo, renovated the Farnsworth House and used it as a summer retreat. After two floods in the late 1990s, Palumbo restored the house again, opening it to the public in 1997. The National Trust acquired the house in 2003 and reopened it the following year. Landmarks Illinois initially operated the house, which was renovated again following a 2008 flood. The National Trust took over operations in 2010.
The Farnsworth House is accessed from the south by an outdoor travertine terrace, occupying an intermediate level between the ground and the house itself. The concrete floor and roof slabs are supported by eight steel columns, which divide the house into three west–east bays. The facade is composed of glass, interspersed with steel mullions; the western third of the house is an open-air veranda. The interior has a minimalist color scheme and is interrupted only by an off-center utility core and a movable wardrobe. The core contains utilities, a kitchen, and bathrooms, while living, dining, and sleeping areas are placed around it. Radiant heating, pipes, and ducts were embedded into the floor, and both Farnsworth and Palumbo furnished the house with various items.
The Farnsworth House has received extensive architectural commentary over the years, with a number of laudatory reviews when it was built. Although it was initially controversial, in part because of its then unique modernist design and because of Mies and Farnsworth's feud; such criticism became less intense after Mies died in 1969. The house has been the subject of books, films, exhibits, and other media works and is designated as a National Historic Landmark. Its design has influenced that of other houses and Mies's later work.
Site
The Farnsworth House is located in Kendall County near Plano, Illinois, United States, about southwest of Chicago. The house is situated on a floodplain along the north bank of the Fox River and is surrounded by trees on three sides. Fox River Drive runs west of the house, behind the trees, while a grassy meadow slopes slightly upward to the north. To keep the house cool during the summer, the southern facade was shaded by a black maple, which was removed in 2013. The original owner, Edith Farnsworth, hired the architect Alfred Caldwell to arrange orchards and gardens about the property. The house was originally not built with any vehicular access. A two-car garage was later built to the north, and the second owner, Peter Palumbo, hired the landscape architect Lanning Roper to build a serpentine gravel driveway. Roper and Palumbo planted 350 trees on the estate over several years, and Roper also designed an English–style meadow and daffodil gardens surrounding the house.The house is part of an estate that is variously cited as covering or. The estate includes the main house, a tennis court, swimming pool, and outbuildings such as a boathouse and fieldhouse. Under Palumbo's ownership, the estate had sculptures by Harry Bertoia, Alexander Calder, Anthony Caro, Andy Goldsworthy, Ellsworth Kelly, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg, and Richard Serra. Palumbo also displayed objects such as British telephone boxes and a piece of the Berlin Wall. When the house opened as a museum in the 21st century, the estate had of trails.
There is a visitor center about east of the main house. Built by Palumbo, one of the house's past owners, the visitor center was originally a prefabricated building with a metal facade. In the 2000s, the visitor center's facade was covered in wood. The Barnsworth Gallery, which contains temporary exhibition space and storage areas for the Farnsworth House's wardrobe, is next to the visitor center. Built by Illinois Institute of Technology students, the Barnsworth Gallery has a circular floor plan and includes construction materials salvaged from other construction projects in Illinois.
History
The original owner was Edith Farnsworth, a kidney doctor from Chicago, who recalled being lonely and overburdened with work despite her successful career. She was a single, middle-aged woman at a time when relatively few American women lived such a lifestyle. The house's architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, had been refining his designs for decades before the Farnsworth House commission and had moved to the U.S. in 1938. He had evolved from using traditional architectural styles in the 1900s to using more modernist styles by the 1930s, and he had built several structures that combined glass facades and more traditional courtyards. For several years, Mies had wanted to build living rooms with glass walls, leading historians to suggest that Mies may have designed the Farnsworth House primarily to further his own design objectives.Development
Selection of site and architect
In the 1940s, Farnsworth bought a farm that the McCormick family had been operating in Plano; sources disagree on whether this initial acquisition covered or. Farnsworth wanted to build a weekend retreat there. Farnsworth and Mies met during a dinner party in late 1945, when she was 42 and he was 59 years old. As Farnsworth recalled, Mies had been quiet for most of the dinner, and only after the meal did she ask if "some young man" working for Mies's firm could design a weekend house on her Plano property. Farnsworth told Mies that she wanted to spend $8,000–10,000 on the house, and Mies expressed interest in the project.Shortly after meeting Mies, Farnsworth drove him to the site. The parcel sat on the north bank of the Fox River; it was surrounded by trees on all sides, except to the west, and there was a driveway from the north. Mies recommended that the house be built from the riverbank, next to a maple tree, and that it be shaded by other trees. Though Farnsworth and local contractor Karl Freund expressed concerns about flooding, Mies thought the design could overcome these issues. Mies and Farnsworth worked closely during the house's development, frequently revisiting the site. They were sometimes accompanied by Mies's employees or other acquaintances, and they also frequently met in Chicago. There is an unsubstantiated rumor that the two were romantically involved.
Design
Edward Duckett, one of Mies's associates, devised alternate plans for elevated and at-grade structures. Mies ultimately decided to raise the house about from the ground, since it would justify his decision to build the house on the Fox River's floodplain. The initial design called for a simple design with a bolted steel frame, plywood core, and concrete-slab floor. When Farnsworth asked Mies what materials he was considering, Mies said he would use steel and glass, explaining, "in that way we'll let the outside in". Mies disregarded privacy and social concerns, saying: "If you view nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it gains a more profound significance than if viewed from the outside. That way more is said about nature—it becomes part of a larger whole."Mies's team drew hundreds of diagrams. The architect considered and abandoned plans for interior glass partitions, mosquito screens, and multiple stairs. Mies also considered various materials for the house's floor and mechanical core, and he contemplated repositioning and resizing various architectural elements. There were also debates over whether to even use an open-plan interior and whether to include a second entrance or movable windows. The design was partly complete by 1947, when it was included in an exhibition of Mies's work at New York's Museum of Modern Art. After visiting the MoMA exhibition, Farnsworth recalled that she thought the house "might well become the prototype of new and important elements of American architecture", even though many of the architectural details were still not finalized. Construction was delayed because Mies waited another two years after completing the model and some watercolors, and Farnsworth was waiting to use funds from a bequest. Work resumed after Farnsworth contacted Mies's associate Alfred Caldwell, who agreed to draw up plans.
Farnsworth and Mies compromised on design details such as kitchen equipment, mirror sizes, and the presence of a fireplace. The cost rose significantly because of the need to elevate the house, the lack of an access road, and Farnsworth's requirement that wires and pipes be placed underground. Further complicating matters, materials and equipment for the rural site had to be delivered from Plano. Mies's team prepared several plans with varying dimensions, each with different costs; they ultimately selected a plan for a house, which was expected to cost around $60,000. Although no one challenged Mies's decision to use single-pane glass rather than costlier insulated glazing, contractors did question his decision to use travertine instead of a cheaper stone. Even when Farnsworth set a budget of $40,000, Mies said it was enough for only a "cheap house", notwithstanding the fact that similar houses cost much less.