Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe

1. Farnsworth House
-Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Presentation by Huzefa Patheria

3. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
(1886- 1969)
• German Architect
• No formal training in architecture
• Worked under Peter Behrens
• Succeeded Gropius as Bauhaus Director
• Migrated to the US and taught architecture
at the Illinois Institute of Technology
• Designed SKYSCRAPERS OF STEEL AND GLASS
which became models of skyscraper design
throughout the world

4. “Less is more.”
-van der Rohe
CHARACTER OF WORKS:
• Simple rectangular forms
• Open, flexible plans and multi-functional spaces
• Widespread use of glass to bring the outside in
• Mastered steel and glass construction
• Exposed and very refined structural details

5. Mies van der Rohe,
FARNSWORTH HOUSE,
Illinois, 1946-51

6. Designed and built from 1946 to
1951, Farnsworth House is considered a
paradigm of international style architecture in
America. The house's structure consists of
precast concrete floor and roof slabs supported
by a carefully crafted steel skeleton frame of
beams, girders and columns. The facade is made
of single panes of glass spanning from floor to
ceiling, fastened to the structural system by steel
mullions. The building is heated by radiant coils
set in the concrete floor; natural cross ventilation
and the shade of nearby trees provide minimal
cooling. Though it proved difficult to live in, the
Farnsworth House's elegant simplicity is still
regarded as an important accomplishment of the
international style.

7. • Between 1931 and
1935 (and after WW2)
a series of houses
which adapt the
Barcelona Pavilion
plan-type to domestic
use; plans increasingly
introverted
• Nature still dominant in
his sketches – the house
frames a view in which
nature is idealised

10. Farnsworth House, 1946-50, Plano (IL)

20. • Often assumed that the minimalist
distillation in Mies has to do with
commitment to the craft of
building, but he appears more engaged
with idealising and mediating
techniques of graphic representation
• His criteria ideal and visual to a great
degree – not constructional
• He uses materiality but in a montage
way
• ‘Mies’s conception of architecture
followed the dialectic tendency of
German Idealism to think in terms of
opposites. According to the
Neoplatonic aesthetics that
influenced his thinking, the
transcendental world is reflected in
the world of the senses.’ (Colquhoun)

21. Mies van der Rohe,
LAKE SHORE DRIVE APTS. & THE SEAGRAM BUILDING

22. Mies van der Rohe,
SEAGRAM BUILDING,
New York, 1958

23. Mies van der Rohe,
LAKE SHORE DRIVE
APARTMENTS, Illinois, 1951

24. Mies van der Rohe, Mies van der Rohe,
GERMAN PAVILION Interior, FARNSWORTH HOUSE Interior,
Barcelona Expo, 1929 Illinois, 1946-51

25. End