- Kate Joyce
- Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House
Last Thursday evening, Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Farnsworth House in Plano was bathed in computer-controlled lights in intricate sequences and patterns. A team of artists called Luftwerk—namely, Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero—was previewing for the press its forthcoming installation INsite at the 2,400-square-foot home, a modernist glass box that used to be a secluded escape for Dr. Edith Farnsworth, a Chicago nephrologist.
Mies van der Rohe built the glass-walled, minimalist home between 1945 and 1951 and it’s come to be regarded as emblematic of modernist architecture. Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin called the home a masterpiece, praising its “brilliant juxtaposition” with the surrounding trees and river. That mirrors Mies’s take on his own work: “When you see nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it gets a deeper meaning than outside. More is asked from nature, because it becomes part of the larger whole.” Luftwerk’s installation heightens and exaggerates the forms at play, using lights and the blank canvas of nightfall to draw attention to the home’s shapes and profile.
