The Farnsworth House (1951) is considered to be one of Mies van der Rohe’s greatest Modernist works. Its significance is of equality to buildings like The Seagram Building in New York (1954-1958) and the Barcelona Pavilion (1929). The Farnsworth House, which embodies a certain aesthetic peak in Mies van der Rohe’s experiments, is one of a long series of House projects.
Historian Maritz Vandenburg wrote that the ‘The interior is unprecedentedly transparent to the surrounding site, and also unprecedentedly uncluttered in itself.’ The Farnsworth House was transparent so that when someone was standing inside the house, they would still feel a part of its surroundings, and when someone was outside the house looking in its direction, they could see the natural surroundings on the other side of the house with minimal disruptions.
Mies van der Rohe stated that ‘In its simplest form architecture is rooted in entirely functional considerations, but it can reach up through all degrees of value to the highest sphere of spiritual existence into the realm of pure art.’ What Mies van der Rohe meant when he said this was that he would start off his designs with functional considerations like material and structure, and then refine them until they excel their origins to become a structure of pure art and space.
This was how Mies van der Rohe was designing when he designed the Farnsworth House, The house is a structure of pure art and space, as there are minimal interior walls, the exterior is mainly glass, and there are large spatial areas.
Farnsworth House
A National Trust Historic site
Accessed 02/10/2011
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