Farnsworth house

Farnsworth house designed by Ar. Mies van der Rohe

1. FARNSWORTH HOUSE

2. •Introduction
•Architect
•Site Plan
•Structure
•Plan
•Section
•Elevation
•Spaces
•Interior
•Materials
•Drawbacks
•Conclusion

3. •Architect: Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe
•Year(s) of design: 1945-
1950
•Year(s) of
Contruction:1950-1951
•Land Area: 240,000
sq.m
•Floor Area:206 sq.m
•Location: Springfield,
Illinois, United States

4. •Widely recognized as an iconic masterpiece of International
Style of Architecture.

6. Architect

7. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
•German-American architect.
•created an influential 20
th
century architectural style,
stated with extreme clarity
and simplicity.
•He called his buildings “skin
and bones” architecture.
•He sought a rational approach
that would guide the creative
process of architectural
design.
•“less is more” and “God is in
the details”.

8. •Extensive use of clear floor-to-
ceiling glassopens the interior to
its natural surroundings to an
extreme degree.
•Two distinctly expressed
horizontal slabs, which form the
roof and the floor, sandwich an
open space for living.
•The slab edges are defined by
exposed steel structural members
painted pure white.
•The elongated rectangle of the
house lies parallel to the course of
fox river.

10. •Entranceon the sunny
side facing the river
instead of street.
•Suspended stairways
represented by the
perpendicular axis
faces the river directly.
•Simple elongated cubic
form of the house
parallel to the flow of
the river
•Terrace platform is
slipped downstream in
relation to the elevated
porch and living
platform.
•Outdoor spaces are
extensions of indoor
space with ascreened
porch andopen terrace.

11. ROOF PLAN

12. •Mies applied the concept of an
unobstructed space that is
flexible for use by people.
•The interior appears to be a
single open room, its space
ebbing and flowing around two
wood blocks
•The building is essentially one
large room filled with
freestanding elements that
provide subtle differentiations
within an open space, zones for
sleeping, cooking, dressing,
eating and sitting.
•Very private areas such as toilets
and mechanical rooms are
enclosed within the core.

13. SECTION
•The house is elevated 1.60 m above a flood plain by 8 wide flange
steel columns which are attached to the sides of the floor and
ceiling slabs.

14. •Farnsworth House is the ultimate expression of
minimalism-using only the minimum necessary to ensure
the stability of the house.
•Minimum elements include 8 columns, separated by a
distance of 6.60m, supporting the two slabs that forms the
floor and the ceiling.

15. •The 2.75m terrace
slab, supported by
only 4 columns
and leading to the
entrance helps to
emphasize the
immateriality of
the house

16. ELEVATIONS

17. •The floor is set in two
layers, between which
is the plumbing &
drainage system.
•The domestic
plumbing elements
and also the rainwater
run-off spill into a
central circular chest.
•The roof, while mostly
flat, is slightly inclined
towards the center to
force water to run
toward the edges.

18. •A third floating slab, an attached terrace, acts as a
transition between the living area and the ground.
•The house is accessed by two sets of wide steps
connecting ground to terrace and then to porch
•Building with free and open space within a minimal
framework

19. S
P
A
C
E
S
•A central wooden core contains sanitary facilities and creates a
separation between the kitchen, two bedrooms and the living
room.
•The 111 sq.m terrace is extended towards a meadow an the
levels are communicated by means of stairs.

21. Materials
•The architectural
work is done in steel,
laminated glass plates
& Roman travertine
on the floor and
deck.
•Mill-formed steel and
plate glass –
represent modern
era.
•Roman travertine and
exotic wood veneers-
traditionalism.

22. •All the steel pillars
that hold both the
platforms are of
square section and
have been blasted
and polished.
They are painted
white, making their
welds virtually
invisible.

23. Drawbacks
•Lack of traditional warmth and coziness.
•Poor energy efficiency.
•Proved difficult to live in.
•It lacks air conditioning & therefore, in the warm
seasons, produces an effect similar to that of a
greenhouse.

24. •Mies talks about free space, but his space is very fixed.

25. INDOOR TO OUTDOOR VIEWS

26. OUTDOOR TO INDOOR VIEWS

27. Service care
becomes the
diagram of the
house as a
machine, the
kitchens and back
to back
bathrooms stand
in a logical,
utilitarian
relationship to
one another.