Edith Farnsworth House, 14520 River Road, Plano, Kendall County, IL

Address was originally recorded as "Fox River & Milbrook Roads" it was changed to "14520 River Road" in 2010 to more precisely record its location.
STORED OFF SITE AND ON SITE. mchr
Significance: Designed by International Style leader Ludwig Mies van der Rohe beginning in 1945-46, and constructed from 1949 to 1951, the Farnsworth House represents the apex of Mies' American career. Built as a country house for Edith Farnsworth, a single woman sympathetic to his aesthetic aims, the house comes as close as Mies ever came to achieving his vision of "beinahe nichts" or "almost nothing," the reduction of every element to its essence. In this, the Farnsworth House is the most succinct expression of the design philosophy Mies perfected in his American period; the creation of a legitimate modern architecture by fusing new industrial materials with enduring, universal principles of scale, proportion and balance. Mies' highly individual expression, codified by a generation of American students and admirers into a "style," came to dominate downtowns across the world in the second half of the twentieth century. The Farnsworth House, therefore, serves as a primer, a pellucid statement of the idea at the core of a global modern architectural movement.

Sited to address the Fox River that defines the southern edge of the property, the Farnsworth House's travertine stairs lead to a low terrace, with a second set leading to an upper terrace and the enclosed living space. Four pairs of steel columns suspend this glazed space above the ground. Within, a primavera-veneered core encloses bathroom and mechanical functions. Veneered, recessed from the ceiling, and set away from the building's edges, this core appears a piece of furniture rather than a wall, maintaining a sense of universal, continuous space. More temple than home, Mies set the house into an undeveloped rural landscape along the Fox River. Plug-welds render attachments invisible and transform the house into an object of Platonic perfection set into the rural landscape, creating a powerful dichotomy between man and nature, between idea and reality. Far from a static object, the house's sliding horizontal planes reach out, engaging with their setting, while contrasting starkly with the organic shapes and rich colors of the prairie.

Years before its construction, sketches and models of the Farnsworth House garnered acclaim, inspired imitators, and horrified the self-appointed defenders of the traditional home. The house has continued to serve as an icon of the International Style, the perfection of modernist design ideals. Referenced, revered or reviled, the Farnsworth House is critical to an understanding of architectural design in the second half of the twentieth century.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1598
Survey number: HABS IL-1105
Building/structure dates: 1951 Initial Construction
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 4000867