A case study from the National Trust for Historic Preservation: The Farnsworth House
Conceived by internationally renowned architect Mies van der Rohe as a country retreat for Dr. Edith Farnsworth, the house – one of only three residences he designed in the U.S. – was built in 1951 and is significant for the single, geometric form in a pastoral setting, which reinforces the architect’s statement about the potential of a building to express “dwelling” in its simplest essence, and the landscape, an integral aspect of Mies’s aesthetic conception, which has the house – raised 5 feet 3 inches above the ground – facing the Fox River just to the south.
A National Historic Landmark, Farnsworth House is perhaps the fullest expression of modernist ideals that had begun in Europe, but which were fully realized in Plano, Illinois.
Since the National Trust assumed ownership of the site in 2010, the incidence of river flooding has increased. This pattern will continue as the Fox River is a developing watershed.