Who designed the Farnsworth House?

Who designed the Farnsworth House? Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed it.

The house was commissioned in 1945 by Edith Farnsworth, a Chicago physician who wanted a weekend retreat beside the Fox River near Plano, Illinois. Mies completed the design in the late 1940s, and construction finished in 1951.

The building is a landmark of the International Style. Its elevated steel frame, floor-to-ceiling glass walls, two horizontal slabs, and almost entirely open interior embody Mies’s pursuit of visual simplicity and spatial continuity. It stands above the floodplain rather than resting directly on the ground.

A common mix-up is confusing the architect with the client: Farnsworth commissioned and owned the house, but Mies designed it. The project also became controversial because construction costs rose sharply and the house had practical problems, including heat gain, flooding risk, and limited privacy. It is now a National Historic Landmark and a house museum.