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Farnsworth House

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Farnsworth House
Cultural context

In this essay I will be discussing the architectural qualities of the ‘Farnsworth House’ by ‘Mies Van Der Rohe’.

Mies Van Der Rohe was born in Germany in 1886 and died in USA in 1969. He managed to complete projects such as ‘Commonwealth Plaza’, ‘860-880 Lake Shore Drive apartments’, Crown hall’ and ‘Seagram Building’ in which the structure for all was out of steel and glass. (Franz SCHULZE 2004:294)

It could be said that architectural qualities can be the set of qualities that determine how good a result is. These qualities can be described as both functional and ‘non-functional’ requirements that can be demanded.

The Farnsworth House is significant in the way it affected architectural designs that came after it.

The ‘Farnsworth House’ is a classic example of modern architecture. The idea of the Farnsworth house began in 1945 where Mies Van Der Rohe met a medical specialist named Edith Farnsworth. The Farnsworth House was built for her as a weekend resort, a cabin or small vacation house. ‘…the idea of Mies building a small vacation house for her on some land she had recently bought outside of Chicago in Plano…’ (jsnfmn-02 December 08).

The authorization for the Farnsworth House to be built was given in 1949 and the house was complete in 1951, located in USA, Chicago and just like Mies Van Der Rohe’s other buildings in the USA the structure for the Farnsworth house was out of steel “…consists of eight wide-flange steel stanchions…” (Vandenberg Maritz 2005:21). The Farnsworth house has reinforced concrete piers, steel girders, steel columns and steel beams as the main structure. The house consists of two rectangular pieces above the ground bracketed by steel columns. The stairs connect the ground to the terrace that is then connected to the main house piece. A Steel frame allows open planned interiors in which walls (for Farnsworth house it could be said that the walls are replaced by glass) could be freely disposed and also the
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