Farnsworth House

Introduction

The Farnsworth House, designed and built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe between 1945 and 1951, is a glass house masterpiece located along the Fox River in Plano, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, standing as a paradigm of 20th century International Style architecture and a milestone of modernist residential design. Designed for Chicago physician Edith Farnsworth, the house employs an extremely pure glass box structure of white steel frame and extensive single-layer glass, with four transparent facades that dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior to the extreme, perfectly embodying Mies's Less is More and universal space philosophy. The house is cantilevered above the Fox River meadow, supported by 8 I-beam columns, with floor and roof cantilevered outward, making the building appear to float in nature. The interior is open and undivided, with only the core service zone enclosed, and furniture and decoration are minimal, creating a poetic dialogue with the surrounding natural landscape. Listed as a National Historic Landmark in 2006 and managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Farnsworth House is a pilgrimage site for architecture students and modernist architecture enthusiasts, and an essential work for studying Mies's architectural philosophy.

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