The Farnsworth House is a house built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is located approximately 80 kilometers west of Chicago, in the town of Plano, Illinois. The Farnsworth House is considered an excellent example of modernism in architecture. The minimal lines and enlongated glass walls seem to float above the green grass of the Fox River Valley. The building was designed to be surrounded by trees, with the trees themselves providing cooling during the summer. The Farnsworth House is heated through electric coils in the concrete floor. The sheer number of windows made living in the Farnsworth House difficult. Additional complications related to the unique format include outrageous heating costs, rapid discoloration of the concrete porches during fall (they must be bleached), and the high level of cosmetic attention demanded by the painted iron frame. While the building makes a powerful statement about the potential of modernist design, even Mies admitted that the house is unsuitable for normal household living.
Inside, the house is essentially one large room with freestanding dividers that provide some differentiation between the spaces. Very private areas such as toilet and bath are obscured from view by these dividing walls. The entire complement of interior decor, furniture, and equipment was designed by Meis expressly for this house.
The total cost of the house was $72,000 in 1951. This is the equivalent of approximately $500,000 in 2005 dollars. Cost overruns and alleged personal conflict between Dr. Edith Farnsworth and Meis led to a lawsuit. Farnsworth claimed the house was uninhabitable. Meis agreed, claiming that the house was really just an artistic exercise that could be used for vacation purposes. Besides, Meis could prove that Farnsworth had approved the plans, and he won in court.
Part of Farnsworth's protest against Meis included a national appeal to architecture critics and a denouncement of Meis in national publications. Frank Lloyd Wright used the occasion to denounce the house, the architect, and the International (modernist) Style in general. In his opinion, modernists were closet communists with mechanistic views of human needs and worshipers of conformist minimalism in all things.
Despite the controversy, the house's historical significance is undeniable and it has many admirers.
In 1972 Farnsworth's husband sold the house to British property magnate Peter Palumbo. He added to the grounds and commissioned noted sculptors including Anthony Caro and Richard Serra to produce sculptures for the grounds. Palumbo sold the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2003 for a reported $8 million.
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