Farnsworth House - by Mies van der Rohe

Farnsworth House..
Architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Location: River Road, Plano, Illinois..
Completed: 1951 [Built between 1945 and 1951]
A weekend retreat for Dr. Edith Farnsworth..

The house joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
It is currently owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012..
A day trip to Farnsworth House, Plano.. with two awesome friends, Debra Purden and Lynn Becker.. I owe them a huge Thank You!! It was our weekday retreat to a weekend vacation home. Here are some images from the day..

A Glass house made on the Mies' minimalist concept of "less is more".. embodies a certain aesthetic culmination in Mies van der Rohe’s experiment with this building type.

From the website.. Farnsworth House
As historian Maritz Vandenburg has written in his monograph on the Farnsworth House.. “Every physical element has been distilled to its irreducible essence. The interior is unprecedentedly transparent to the surrounding site, and also unprecedentedly uncluttered in itself. All of the paraphernalia of traditional living –rooms, walls, doors, interior trim, loose furniture, pictures on walls, even personal possessions – have been virtually abolished in a puritanical vision of simplified, transcendental existence. Mies had finally achieved a goal towards which he had been feeling his way for three decades."

Landscape is an intergral part of the design. Such a glasshouse is possible only because it is built in a secluded area with no buildings aound it..

Farnsworth House through the woods..

The building is currently undergoing restoration work. Two window frames have been removed to resolve steel corrosion issues. A bit of a disappointment, because view of a perfect glasshouse and its perfect picture was not possible. So here the images of the building under restoration.

This large Maple tree is now towards the end of it's life and supported by many wires. But once, in its glory days, it was lush and majestic. The house was so planned, that this tree provided the much needed shade in the summer days..

The house runs parallel to the Fox River. Since the location is in the flood plain of the river, is elevated, about five feet above the ground. [If obeserved closely, the river can be seen in the background - left corner of the image]..

Fox River, as seen from the house..

Farnsworth House is an absolutely fascinating place! Images cannot capture the wonderful experience of actually being there. So many things can be written about architecturally historic significance of this building, about the love-hate affair between Mies and Dr. Fransworth, the nailbiting story of auction and purchase.. But here are only a few images.
Again a big Thank You to debra Purden and Lynn Becker.. who made this daytrip absolutely AWESOME!!!