Source 1:

he Farnsworth House, designed and completed by Mies van der Rohe from 1946 to
1951, is considered a seminal example of International Style architecture as it was
introduced to the United States. Located on the bank of the Fox River in Plano,
Illinois, the house was commissioned to be a weekend retreat for a single woman,
Dr. Edith Farnsworth.
The house's steel skeleton frame structure provides an exterior armature supporting
uninterrupted floor and roof planes. Eight W-shape columns in parallel rows 28 feet
apart support 15" channel section beams at floor and roof level. These beams frame
a steel joist / pre-cast concrete slab system which supports roof, ceiling and floor
finishes. All structural steel connections are welded in ways that minimize their
visual presence. The steel skeleton frame was sandblasted and primed after
installation at the site.
The building's facade is made of 1/4" thick single-pane clear glass panels spanning
9'-6" from floor to ceiling channels, and measuring 10'-6" wide. Steel mullions, built
up of angles and bars, support the vertical edges of the glass panes. A continuous
curtain track allows for user defined privacy and shading. The facade's only
operable lites are the entrance's double doors, and two operable hopper windows in

the bottom part of the eastern facade. The effect of this fully transparent facade is
to blur the usual boundaries defining domesticity. In the Farnsworth house,
distinctions between public and private, outside and inside, often disappear.
In plan, the house consists of two rectangular slabs floating above the ground,
bracketed by steel columns. Stairs connect the ground to the 55' x 23' terrace slab,
and connect the terrace slab to the 77' x 29' main house slab. This continuous
upper level plane, set 5'-3" above the ground to prevent flooding, is used for both
exterior deck space and interior floor. Door and facade details were designed so that
the deck's 1-1/4" travertine pavers are not penetrated or interrupted, making a
smooth transition from outside to inside. These details, combined with the
continuous flat ceiling and planar facades, make the house seem like a box that is
"slipped" into the steel column structure.
The interior space of the house is delineated by an asymmetrically placed core
volume, containing the kitchen, bathroom and fireplace. In contrast to the facade's
steel and glass, it is constructed primarily of primavera plywood. The core is the
only place where elements puncture the severe roof and floor planes. Drain and
sewage pipes go through the floor to the ground, and a vertical shaft containing
bathroom vents and the fireplace flue punctures the roof. These utilities are
suppressed by being recessed into the more inaccessible and discrete center areas
of the slabs, making them virtually invisible from view, even from the exterior of the
house.
The house is heated by a radiant floor slab system set into the travertine's concrete
set bed. The house is not air conditioned; minimal cooling is provided by crossventilation between the two operable windows and the entrance doors. The trackmounted shantung drapery just inside the glass facade also helps control solar heat
gain.
As Mies's first completed domestic project in America, the Farnsworth House both
enlightened and unnerved the architectural community. Its design neglects some
traditional domestic conventions and comforts. Still, its reinterpretation of domestic
space and its elegant, spare detailing make it a prominent icon of Modern
Architecture in America.
Source 2:
The Farnsworth House, built between 1945 and 1951 for Dr. Edith Farnsworth as a
weekend retreat, is a platonic perfection of order gently placed in spontaneous
nature in Plano, Illinois. Just right outside of Chicago in a 10-acre secluded wooded
site with the Fox River to the south, the glass pavilion takes full advantage of
relating to its natural surroundings, achieving Mies concept of a strong relationship
between the house and nature.

The single-story house consists of eight I-shaped steel columns that support the roof
and floor frameworks, and therefore are both structural and expressive. In between
these columns are floor-to-ceiling windows around the entire house, opening up the
rooms to the woods around it. The windows are what provide the beauty of Mies
idea of tying the residence with its tranquil surroundings. His idea for shading and
privacy was through the many trees that were located on the private site. Mies
explained this concept in an interview about the glass pavilion stating, Nature, too,
shall live its own life. We must beware not to disrupt it with the color of our houses
and interior fittings. Yet we should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human
beings together into a higher unity.
Mies intended for the house to be as light as possible on the land, and so he raised
the house 5 feet 3 inches off the ground, allowing only the steel columns to meet
the ground and the landscape to extend past the residence. In order to accomplish
this, the mullions of the windows also provide structural support for the floor slab.
The ground floor of the Farnsworth House is thereby elevated, and wide steps slowly
transcend almost effortlessly off the ground, as if they were floating up to the
entrance. Aside from walls in the center of the house enclosing bathrooms, the floor
plan is completely open exploiting true minimalism.
With the Farnsworth house constructed about 100 feet from the Fox River, Mies
recognized the dangers of flooding. He designed the house at an elevation that he
bellieved would protect it from the highest predicted floods, which are anticipated
every hundred years. In 1954 the river rose six feet above the one-hundred-yearmark and flooded the house. However, Mies was not able to anticipate the increase
in water runoff caused by the development in the Chicago area which led to more
floods. Current research states that the interior of the house has received flood
waters on 6 occasions, beginning in 1954 and becoming more frequent having also
flooded in 1996,1997, and just recently in 2008.
Although there were some problems with the maintenance of the house due to
flooding and livability of the design that involved complaints about the poor
ventilation of the interior as well as cost overruns, there is no doubt that the
Farnsworth House is the essence of simplicity in its purest form. The brilliance in its
artistic design became the inspiration for other works, such as Philip Johnsons Glass
House. The man-made geometric form creates a relationship the extraneous
landscape surrounding it to exemplify dwelling in its simplest state. As Mies stated
on his achievement, 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 natureit becomes part of a larger whole.