It's tempting, telling the story of The Edith FarnsworthTo burst shots like “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”. Because the residence in question is mainly made of glass, or rather glass and steel, and its first owner turned out to have more than a few stones for its architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohethe last director of The Bauhauswho had immigrant from Nazi Germany to the United States at the end of nineteen years. It was during a dinner in 1945 that he met the avant-garde chicago doctor Edith Farnsworthwhich expressed its interest in building a fully modern retirement well outside the city. When asked if one of his apprentices could do the work, Mies proposed to take him on himself.
The task, as Mies designed architecture in its time, was to build for an era in which high and rapid industrial technology became inevitable in an ordinary life. Such lives, properly lived, would require new executives, and carefully considered on this subject. The form finally taken by the Farnsworth house is such an image: ordering, and to a extent that could be called extreme, while at another maximum permissive level of human freedom.
It was, in any case, the idea: in physical reality, Farnsworth herself had a long list of practical complaints concerning what she started to call “my conception mies”, in particular to do with her attraction of insects and a greenhouse retention (not compensated, in the real European style, by air conditioning).
The columnists of the Farnsworth house saga tend to mention that the central relationship seems to have exceeded that of the architect and the customer, at least for a while. But whatever the affection that used to exist between them had surely evaporated when they continued towards the end of the construction, both alleging non-payment and farnsworth alleging a professional fault. In the event of Farnsworth, lost in court and used the house as a weekend retirement for a few decades before selling it to the British developer and lovers of architecture Peter Palumbo, who particularly appreciated his atmosphere during thunderstorms. Today, it works like a museum, as its executive director Scott Mahaffey explains the new Open space video above. Hearing talking about all the troubles behind the design of the Farnsworth house, participants of its tours could find themselves thinking that hell has no fury like a despised client.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6BV2CODV18
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Based in Seoul, Colin MArshall Written and broadcastTS on cities, language and culture. His projects include the substack newsletter Books on cities And the book The stateless city: a walk through Los Angeles from the 21st century. Follow it on the social network formerly known as Twitter in @ColinmArshall.