Which architect designed the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois?

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois.

Edith Farnsworth commissioned the house in the mid-1940s as a weekend retreat beside the Fox River. Farnsworth met Mies at a dinner party in 1945, and construction eventually took place from 1949 to 1951. The house was designed in the International Style, using a steel frame, large glass walls, and an unusually open interior.

The building stands above the floodplain on elevated columns, with two offset rectangular slabs forming the house and its terrace. Its interior has few conventional rooms; a central wood-paneled core contains the kitchen, bathrooms, and mechanical equipment, while furniture helps define the living areas.

A common mix-up is confusing the Farnsworth House with Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut. Johnson’s house was completed earlier, but its design was influenced by a model of Mies’s Farnsworth project. The Farnsworth House later became a National Historic Landmark and is now preserved as a public museum.