The Farnsworth House was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) in 1951 for Dr. Edith Farnsworth (1903-1978), a successful Chicago physician and researcher. Built as a weekend retreat, the house is located near Plano, Illinois on the banks of the Fox River, a rural and natural setting that greatly contrasts with the stark architecture. One of the most exactingly detailed works of modernist domestic architecture, the Farnsworth House was unprecedented in its day and still confronts the visitor with the basic question of, "what is a house?"
The all-glass exterior walls and the gleaming white steel structure combine to create a forceful work of architectural sculpture set in nature. The structural columns that support the roof also lift the house up from its flood prone site. As historian Franz Schulze has remarked:
Certainly the house is more nearly temple than dwelling, and it rewards aesthetic contemplation before it fulfills domestic necessity.
This masterwork of modern architecture was listed in the National Register in 2004.
