Clare McLaughlin
FOR EDITH
T h i s t h e s i s i s f o r E d i t h Fa r n s w o r t h . This thesis interrogates the gendered history of modernism through the personal history of Edith Farnsworth, owner of the Farnsworth House, the renowned modernist work of architecture designed by Mies van der Rohe. In order to demonstrate how modernism serves to repress femininity, I’ve analyzed how the house operated as a gendered architecture of control. This thesis represents Edith’s decorative objects as they existed inside of the home as a method to alter how we understand the home as a work of architecture associated with Mies. By positioning Edith’s objects in opposition to the rigid and inflexible architecture of the home, this thesis reverses the overtold and binary history of one of the most prominent works of modernist architecture in America.
Wendl, Nora. Photograph. Albuquerue, n.d. University of New Mexico.
CONTENTS A B ST R AC T A N D G L O S SA RY E D I T H ’ S L I F E A N D L E GAC Y H I S T O RY O F T H E FA R N SWO RT H H O U S E A N A LY S I S : B I N A R I E S , T R A N S PA R E N C Y A N D F RU ST R AT I O N PERIOD DESIGN AND GENDER R E J E C T I O N O F O R N A M E N T : H OW M O D E R N ISM DENIES FEMININITY V I S UA L T H E S I S : E D I T H ’ S L I F E I N O B J E C T S C O N C LU S I O N
ABSTRACT GLOSSARY
Photographs-Farnsworth, Edith, Ca. 1904-1920. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library.
ABSTRACT The enormous cultural influence of modernist architecture on the ways in which we live and inhabit the world is undeniable. Yet scholars have critiqued modernism as a design style which strips domesticity and decoration, thus eradicating femininity by operating as an extension of male gaze. My thesis interrogates the gendered history of modernism through the fraught story of the Farnsworth House, the renowned modernist work of architecture designed by Mies van der Rohe. My vehicle of exploration into modernism’s masculinist history is the homeowner of the Farnsworth House, Edith Farnsworth. Through visual and spatial research into Edith’s personal history, I’ve analyzed the house’s gendered architecture of control, which served to relegate her to the role of Mies’s housewife. Rather than culminating in one final built design, this thesis presents a series of image-based interventions in the house as a form of narrativizing Edith’s life in the home. These interventions demonstrate how decoration tells a more personal history of space, and in Edith’s case, how material objects can operate as a weapon against modernism and the architecture of control which surrounded her. By representing her objects as they existed during the twenty years she lived in the home, my thesis reverses the public’s visual understanding of this modernist house as associated with Mies, and instead tells Edith’s story of resilience through her chosen objects and decoration.
GLOSSARY MODERNISM is the problematic midcentury “international style” phenomenon in which ornament was rejected, minimalism was promoted, and domesticity was erased.
GENDERED spaces refer to the concept that our interiors were developed in a method according to gender; the man occupies the library and the living room, while the woman’s dwelling is the kitchen and the dining room.
D E C O R AT I O N the professional act of adorning a house with materials and objects on behalf of a client or for oneself.
ORNAMENT FEMINISM is the act of elevating women’s lives through interior design advocacy. It is the oppositional force to modernism.
Defined as “a thing used to make something look more attractive but usually having no practical purpose, especially a small object such as a figurine.” This modernist-skewed definition assumes that cultural values, homemaking and decoration are not “functional” to an individual’s wellbeing.
T R A N S PA R E N C Y
A characteristic of architecture which allows for perhaps uncomfortable visibility across both directions of a surface, into and out of.
A RC H I T E C T U R E the field in which modernism operates and the oppositional realm to interior decoration.
AD ORNMENT MASCULINITY
the addition of objects to preexisting surfaces as a method of protection, nesting, and homemaking.
In design is comprised of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence.
D O M E ST I C I T Y
the processes surrounding the act of homemaking. Traditionally associated with the “woman of the house,� domesticity was stripped from modernist design.
OBJECT
An item relating to our lived experience, which can be tied to a person or group of people and which we place identity upon.
FEMININITY the pleasant qualities of a home which are stereotypically associated with women.
EDITH’S LIFE AND LEGACY
Photographs-Farnsworth, Edith, Ca. 1904-1920. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library.
ON EDITH
Edith Farnsworth is a name recognized today mostly by architects, designers or American historians - some may vaguely remember who she is, others will immediately recall her, but only for one reason: her house. If remembered at all, Edith is thought of as the woman who sued Mies van der Rohe over the house he built for her: the Farnsworth House. Historical narratives about the house tend to be one-sided, glorifying Mies and creating a menacing villain out of Edith. Historians and theorists who do discuss Edith only cite her memoirs and letters in order to bolster the (unfounded) point that Edith and Mies were romantically involved. This thesis aims to disrupt this stale narrative and instead shift the focus to Edith’s personal history, exposing her many talents and multi-faceted personality as a vehicle for design. Edith was born in 1903 to George James Farnsworth, a Wisconsin and Chicago lumber manufacturer, and Mary Alice Brooks Farnsworth. Her diverse background before becoming a physician was what encouraged her dynamic qualities and hobbies later in life. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in English Literature and Composition, and went on the the American Conservatory of Music to study violin and theory. During the 1920s, Edith travelled to Rome to study music with Mario Corti, while also taking classes in Italian and studying the country’s literature - quickly reaching fluent proficiency. In the 1930’s, she held a very unique position in society
by attending medical school as a woman. Farnsworth studied at Northwestern University, graduating from their medical school and going on to join the staff of the Passavant Hospital at the beginning of World War II. Edith specialized in diseases of the kidney. This brings us to the late 1940’s, when Edith hired Mies van der Rohe to design and build a weekend cottage for her on the Fox River in Plano, Illinois. After a terrible experience living in the home until 1968, she began the process of selling it to Lord Peter Palumbo, a London real estate developer and collector of architects’ houses. Farnsworth retired in 1967 and moved to Bagno a Ripoli near Florence, Italy. She spent her final years translating Italian poetry and becoming acquainted with Nobel Prize-winning poet, Eugenio Montale. Three volumes of her translations of the work of Montale, Albino Pierro, and Salvatore Quasimodo were published by the Henry Regnery Co., 1969-1976. Farnsworth died in 1978.1
1 “Edith Farnsworth Papers, 1900-1977 : Farnsworth, Edith : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. Newberry Library, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/mms_farnsworth/page/n552/ mode/thumb.
From left: Edith as a young woman (The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs-Farnsworth, Edith, Ca. 1904-1920. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library) Edith with her poodle (The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library) Poetry by Edith. (The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Works-Poems. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library) Edith’s poodle (The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
HISTORY OF THE FARNSWORTH HOUSE
FARNSWORT
FOX RI Left; View from porch looking into living area, from Interiors and Mies. Š Alan Weintraub /Arcaid / Corbi Right: The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
TH HOUSE
IVER HOUSE
The Farnsworth House sits in close proximity to the Fox River, which has historically flooded the property year after year. While the property is often described as incredibly secluded, it is in fact right off of a major road. While the home is known publicly as the Farnsworth House, Edith preferred to call it the Fox River House, perhaps as a method of dissociation from the negative press and infamy that plagued her.
ANALYSIS
VANTAGE Photographs of the house composed by Edith are often taken from the position of a curious neighbor or peeking Tom, through foliage and clandestinely low to the ground. These images are in stark contrast to those architectural ones we are accustomed to, which represent the house as a heavenly shell of modern perfection.
The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
POINT
The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
EDITH’S INTERIOR, SHOT BY HER IN 1951 What can we learn about Edith through the lens of her camera?
Living Area. c. 1951. Photo by Hedrich-Blessing, courtesy of the Chicago History Museum.
“ D O I F E E L I M P L AC A B L E C A L M ? . . .T H E T RU T H I S T H AT I N T H I S H O U S E W I T H I T S F O U R WA L L S O F G L A S S I F E E L L I K E A P R OW L I N G A N I M A L , A LWAY S O N T H E A L E RT. I A M A LWAY S R E ST L E S S . E V E N I N T H E E V E N I N G . I F E E L L I K E A S E N T I N E L O N G UA R D DAY A N D N I G H T. I C A N R A R E LY ST R E T C H O U T A N D RELAX…”1
1 “Edith Farnsworth Papers, 1900-1977 : Farnsworth, Edith : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. Newberry Library, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/mms_farnsworth/page/n552/mode/thumb.
Left: Edith reclined on her couch. The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
Right: Edith’s kitchen as photographed by her. The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
Edith’s screen porch. The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
Houseplants lined the glass walls of her home, bringing the outside in yet marking a sort of barrier between her interior and the outside world.
Edith’s space is much different than the stripped images of the Farnsworth house that we tend to conjure when thinking of it.
Looking out at the porch from the fining room area. The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
ANALYSIS
The single bed elevates Edith’s status as a single woman, and ensures any stay with guests will be uncomfortable.
Two bathrooms, yet one bedroom creates a strange and uncomfortable dynamic in which the female body is hidden away from guests and outsiders. This is strange given the nature of the glass house, in which the clothed Edith is the version on display.
The open bedroom takes away any privacy which would be enjoyed in a “typical” home
Glass creates atmosphere of theatre in which homeowner is performer of domestic duties; given Edith’s desire to distinguish herself - through design - from the midcentury housewife, she is now an unwilling actress trapped in the same role she rejected through her life choices.
Everything in this kitchen has a place, yet favorite domestic items and objects (family china, collected dishes) have no place for display, creating the illusion that this kitchen is for anyone and everyone, instead of wonderfully unique Edith.
On this stage, she is a strange, perverted version of society’s housewife. One which is subservient not to husband but to architecture.
Reflective glass was a constant reminder for Edith of solitarity, lonliness and being isolated and on display for the world to see her “strangeness”.
Unrelenting geometry doesn’t allow for objects of comfort, decoration, or familiarity. Thus, the occupant becomes part of the architect’s story, instead of vice versa.
The eradication of the fireplace is what Alice Friedman understands as a direct affront to domesticity. The hearth is what the traditional home is designed around, and represents mothering, the feminine, and domesticity in general. Mies van der Rohe designed the fireplace to disappear wholley into the wall, rendering it invisible. His rejection of traditional design was often equivocable to eradication of the feminine
IN HIS HOUSE To empathize with Edith’s emotions while occupying the home, drawings and representations help to imagine the feeling of being an actress on a stage while occupying your home. Glass walls strip privacy and comfort, creating an atmosphere of self consciousness in the place you should feel most at ease.
ING OUT K O O L / N I G N I K O O L
PIECES OF EDITH Thanks to Edith’s memoirs and archive, it is possible to unearth photographs of her interior. Edith inhabited the house much differently than can be imagined through the representations of the home we are so used to seeing. This is an exploration of the house as it existed throughout the twenty years she lived in it. By interrogating her arrangements, decorations, and objects, the ways in which she lived inside the home start to become clearer.
PERIOD DESIGN AND GENDER
Victorian Living Room
Victorian Interior. n.d. Photograph. Interior-Dsgn.
The Eam
Interior of the Eames Ho
PERIOD STYLE According to architectural historian and theorist Lynne Walker, the field of architecture is structured around a series of binaries. These binaries are ones like “public versus private,” “exterior versus interior,” and “structure versus decoration.” Dr. Walker would also probably argue that versus could be replaced with over in each of those binaries. That is to say, these binaries are gendered issues engrained in the very genetics of the field of architecture.1 Through her research, Walker examines the ways in which “ideas and assumptions about social relations around gender, class, and race are translated into domestic space, embodied in the home, and represented in its spatiality2”. Walker exposes how design evolves by way of rejection: architects revolt against the (gendered) thinking of their predecessors to create revitalized methods of (gendered) thinking. Modernists dismissed the “homey values, national character, and decorative aesthetic of the Victorian period and defined modernism against domesticity”.3 While Victorian architects created spaces which problematically separated genders through architecture, furnishings, decoration, and ornament, Modernists’ rejection of these qualities created spaces which were “stripped of any lingering Victorian sentimentality or domesticity”4. Beatriz Colomina’s reading of modern architecture is highly relevant to Edith: 1 Walker, Lynne. “Home Making: An Architectural Perspective.” Signs, vol. 27, no. 3, 2002, pp. 823–835. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/337927. Accessed 30 Jan. 2020. 2 Ibid, 823. 3 Ibid, 827. 4 Ibid.
The Farnsworth House
mes House
ouse. Courtesy of the Eames Office
C. Yorgos Efthymiadis. Divisiare.
“Although purportedly gender neutral in and universalist in their values, modernist domestic space was implicitly masculine, defining, and controlling, operating through surveillance and the “domination of the gaze”.5 Although modern architecture can be interpreted as masculine and stark, it can embrace ornament and decoration, thus embracing domesticity and femininity. Take the Eames house as a helpful demonstration of how design can reconcile stark modernism with warm domesticity and decoration. Constructed in 1949 by husband and wife design icons Charles and Ray Eames, it was built during the same period as the Farnsworth House. But the Eames House exists in our architectural memories as a warm space, filled with decoration, books, and objects, which is also to say it is a space that has been lived in. Archival images of the Farnsworth House during the time Edith inhabited it aren’t too different from pictures of the Eames House. While imagery of Edith’s home aren’t easily accessible or distributed to the public, they are available, and show a much different Farnsworth House than the staged version we’re used to; Edith filled her home with a variety of modernist furniture, textured rugs, and wall decorations. She lined her glass walls with houseplants, hung up walls of curtains, and threw pillows on her furniture. Edith combined patterns and textures; she made her home as comfortable as she could have, given the circumstances. Through these personal objects, Edith softened the stark modernist environment that was imposed upon her, creating her own interior through objects which reflected herself.
5
Colomina, Beatriz. Sexuality & Space. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992.
REJECTION OF ORNAMENT: HOW MODERNISM DENIES FEMININITY
MODERN
NISM
In April 1953, journalist Elizabeth Gordon wrote for House Beautiful, “I have talked to a highly intelligent, now disillusioned woman who spent more than $70,000 building a 1-room house that is nothing but a glass cottage on stilts… There is a well-established movement in modern architecture, decorating and furnishings which is promoting unlivability, stripped down emptiness, lack of storage space and therefore lack of posessions.” 1This woman was Edith Farnsworth, and she was a victim of modernism. When considering the works of canonical architecture, seldom do we focus on its user. In the case of the Farnsworth House in particular, its user was a woman, which begs the question of how the home’s history has gendered as masculine, influencing the way its been historicized, and taught. Scholar Alice Friedman has sought to uncover this one-sided history throughout much of her work, in particular for her book, Women and the Making of the Modern House : a Social and Architectural History. In this work, Friedman details Edith’s personal history, underscoring the ways in which the history of the house have been reinterpreted and skewed over the years. Friedman explains that while architect/client disputes were not uncommon, and many works of architecture are riddled with questions about gender roles, power, control and status, the Farnsworth house is particularly unique given Edith Farnsworth’s unique position in the world as a single woman during the 1940s and 50s. Friedman explains Edith’s frustrations as a societal other were perhaps explicitly and visually brought to light through the design of homes during the 1940s and 50s. Houses were built for families, with designated areas for husband (the office, the library) and domains relegated to the wife (kitchen, dining room). Common areas were built to be shared by two. This uncomfortable truth was one which led Farnsworth to seek out a modern designer like van der Rohe, but in the end led to her own frustrations. In the beginning, the house served as an escape from the nuclear family persistence driving mid century society, but soon Edith would find the house was subject to that same pervasive nuclear family concept; her role became that of housewife to van der Rohe’s role of husband. 2 Mies sued Edith for an unpaid construction cost of $3,673.09, plus fees of $15,000 and $12,000 for his services, despite 1 Elizabeth Gordon, “The Threat to the Next America,” House Beautiful 95 (April 1953), 129. 2 Friedman, Alice. People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, and Philip Johnson. American Architectural History, 1998.
knowing full well there was no document stating these fees were owed. Edith, of course, countersued, demanding he return the $33,872.00 she’d paid above the budget of the home. In court, Edith described Mies as a fraud, describing how he’d misrepresented the cost of the house and his abilities as an architect. Edith spoke with interviews with House Beautiful and the Chicago Daily Tribune, who each published exposés —“Charges Famed Architect with Fraud, Deceit,” and, “Glass House Stones”. 3 In an interview with House Beautiful, Edith was quoted as saying, “Do I feel implacable calm?...The truth is that in this house with its four walls of glass I feel like a prowling animal, always on the alert. I am always restless. Even in the evening. I feel like a sentinel on guard day and night. I can rarely stretch out and relax…What else? I don’t keep a garbage can under my sink. Do you know why? Because you can see the whole ‘kitchen’ from the road on the way in here and the can would spoil the appearance of the whole house. So I hide it in the closet farther down from the sink. Mies talks about his ‘free space’: but his space is very fixed. I can’t even put a clothes hanger in my house without considering how it affects everything from the outside. Any arrangement of furniture becomes a major problem, because the house is transparent, like an X-ray.”4. The transparency of the house is one which serves as a sort of modernist trope. Modernist architecture was based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel and reinforced concrete. It advanced the idea that form should follow function and advocated for the rejection of ornament. Rejection of ornament at first glance is a term which astounds, which decries the unnecessary, which makes clear the “pureness” achievable within our homes and architecture when decoration is stripped. At first glance, it is a harmless term, one which goes without questioning alongside modernist theory and writing. Adolf Loos declared in his uproarious 1908 essay Ornament and Crime: “The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from utilitarian objects.”5 In response to what she deems “Bachelor Culture in the work of Adolf Loos”, scholar Susan R. Henderson writes that “Loos viewed ornament as a pernicious invasion of the feminine into masculine culture: ornament was useless, it had debasing and enervating tendencies deriving from its feminine source; it was the embodiment of degeneracy.”6 Evaluating the Farnsworth House through a lens critical to the motives of modernism reveals much about the ways in which Mies van der Rohe approached gender. Reminiscent of Loos’s fear of ornament (femininity) invading the public sphere is van der Rohe’s bathroom design in the Farnsworth House. While the house only had one exposed bed, van der Rohe installed two bathrooms. As scholar Alice Friedman writes, “In a house for a single woman, such an arrangement in fact represents a repressed (or negated) rather than a freed sexuality, just as the doubling of the bathroom suggests a desire to modestly hide the female body and its functions. Despite pronouncements about freedom, Mies let it be known that the provision of a “guest bathroom” at the Farnsworth House was meant to keep visitors from “seeing Edith’s nightgown on the back of the bathroom door”7. This denial of the feminine through design is representative of van der Rohe’s own aversion to domesticity and femininity, and is seen in many of the design choices he made while creating his dream work of architecture.
3 Wendl, Nora. “Sex and Real Estate, Reconsidered: What Was the True Story Behind Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House?” ArchDaily. ArchDaily, July 3, 2015. https://www.archdaily.com/769632/sex-and-real-estate-reconsidered-what-was-the-true-story-behind-mies-van-der-rohes-farnsworth-house. 4 Ibid. 5 Adolf Loos, “Ornament und Verbrechen” Adolf Loos: Sämtliche Schriften in zwei Bänden – Erster Band, Vienna, 1962. 6 Henderson, Susan R. “Bachelor Culture in the Work of Adolf Loos.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), vol. 55, no. 3, 2002, pp. 125–135. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1425531. Accessed 30 Jan. 2020. 7 Friedman, Alice. People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, and Philip Johnson. American Architectural History, 1998.
Edith’s screen porch. The Edith Farnsworth Papers. Photographs- Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill. Photograph. Chicago, n.d. The Newberry Library)
DECORATION ARCH IT GETS
My version of interior design is heavily focused on decoration. There are problems with both termsinterior designer and interior decorator. The first seems to exclude the most exciting parts of the profession like the fabric, the antiques, the rugs and furniture and pillows and wallpaper and ornament! The second definitely excludes other capabilities of the profession like: repositioning non-structural walls, kitchen layout changes, windows, tile. Lately I’ve been feeling conflicted about these terminologies, but I don’t feel angry about them, just questioning. I do feel angry about one term... interior architect. Why do some of us feel the need to elevate ourselves to the position of architect? Personally I think it’s much better to be an interior designer than be an architect. I think it’s more colorful. I would never in my life go to architecture school, so as such, I’d never strive to call myself an interior architect. These terms make me angry because architecture often denies ornament and decoration. I don’t think you can ignore the gender issues at the heart of the architect/decorator debate. Joel Sanders’ Curtain Wars explores just this: “Here the hard walls designed by the architect meet the soft fabric that is the decorator’s trademark, in a juxtaposition that confirms the common perception that architects work conceptual-
N HITECTURE PERSONAL
ly, using durable materials to shape space, while decorators work intuitively, adorning rooms with ephemeral materials and movable objects. the supposed incompatibility between these two rival but nevertheless overlapping design practices evokes deeper cultural conflicts that are themselves bolstered and sustained by profound social anxieties about gender and sexuality.” 1 Joel Saunders Curtain Wars dives deeply into issues that he claims have created these“wars around gender and social insecurity. He’s right. I feel the need to speak up for the decorator in this modern world where sleek lines and cold, masculine architectural interiors are praised. I feel the need to defy these styles with my own feminine sensibilities. I want to praise the domestic enjoyments of life, and highlight them. I think everyone should be who they want to be. Unlike Corbusier or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, I don’t want to force my design manifestos on everyone. But I do feel the need to argue with theirs by throwing antiques and fabric and wallpaper in their faces. My project is decorating as protest.
1
Sanders, Joel. Curtain Wars. http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/16/curtain-wars
pitiless and hard as he turned out to be,
but also defiant and fearful. and I recall the affectionate concern with which we tried to shield him from the intolerable apprehension of his down extinction. Newberry Library, Midwest MS Farnsworth, Edith Farnsworth, Memoirs, Chapter 11, unpag.
Mies van der Rohe. Photograph. The Farnsworth House.
VISUAL THESIS: EDITH’S LIFE IN OBJECTS
INTRODUCTION
Objects are what we decorate with. We decorate in order to express ourselves, to display ourselves, to reveal ourselves. Yet in our industry, Decoration is a term that most would rather erase. Decoration is tied to domesticity. Domesticity is often tied to the notion of the feminine. Thus, decoration is a threat to the masculine ego our industry ties itself to. Modernist architecture finds its roots in rejection of decoration and scorning of ornament. Erasing decoration will erase any ties that design has with the feminine. The weak. The domestic. The Farnsworth House is an attempt at erasing domesticity, decoration, and the feminine. It is preserved impeccably today as Mies van der Rohe would have liked it displayed. Yet if we shift our focus from Mies, what happens when attention is paid to the objects and decoration Edith had in her home? Can I bring her to life in the face of an overtold history? Where did she keep her objects, and what did she do with them? How did she use her interiors as protection against the glass box she felt so trapped inside? What do her objects say about her? How can I reveal these objects? By illustrating her life in things, Edith’s objects tell the untold, erased history of the Farnsworth House.
Photos on following pages courtesy of: John Clulow. Flickr. 2015. SaundraFriedPhotos. Flickr. 2010. Eric Allix Rogers. Flickr. 2018.
Reimagining Edith’s interior, stripped of the familiar architecture of the renowned home
Architecture which bound her both physically and historically, reveals an untold story - a story of her lived interiors
A story told by objects
Obects that are mundane, functional, decorative or nostalgic
EDITH’S OBJECTS
P H O T O G R A P H S K I N D LY P R O V I D E D B Y S C O T T M E H A F F E Y, T H E FA R N S W O R T H H O U S E E X H I B I T I O N D E PA R T M E N T
CONCLUSION
WHERE CAN I GO FROM HERE? Rather than concluding my thesis project with a list of findings, designs, or decisions, I thought it would be more relevant to my ways of working to instead suggest a possible direction of further interrogation. While Edith Farnsworth became hugely central to my project, she also became a vehicle for exploring a masculine work of architecture through my lens of feminist interior designer. I’ve started to understand this format of research as a replicable formula for uncovering untold histories in our insecure industry of interior design, which so often feels overshadowed or made lesser by that of architecture. See pictured three examples of possible future sites of design research: Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Eilleen Gray’s E-1027 House, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House. Similar to the Farnsworth House, each of these homes claim gendered histories directly related to their design, and are primed for a similar analysis of lived interiors.
Photo Courtesy of ArchDaily
Photo Courtesy of Manuel Bougot, Architect Magazine
Photo Courtesy of Frank Caulfield, Frank Lloyd Wright Trust
SOURCES Adolf Loos, “Ornament und Verbrechen” Adolf Loos: Sämtliche Schriften in zwei Bänden – Erster Band, Vienna, 1962. Coleman, Debra, Elizabeth Danze, and Carol Henderson. Architecture and Feminism: Yale Publications on Architecture. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. https://monoskop.org/images/4/47/Coleman_Danze_Henderson_ eds_Architecture_and_Feminism.pdf. Colomina, Beatriz. Sexuality & Space. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992. DeWolfe, Elsie. “The House in Good Taste”. New York: The Century House, 1913. Dunlap, David W. “In a Glass Box, Secrets Are Hard to Keep.” The New York Times. The New York Times, June 24, 1999. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/24/garden/house-proud-personal-visions-in-a-glass-box-secrets-are-hard-to-keep. html. Draper, Dorothy. “Decorating Is Fun! How to Be Your Own Decorator”. New York: Doubleday, Dovan, and Co., 1941. “Edith Farnsworth Papers, 1900-1977 : Farnsworth, Edith : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. Newberry Library, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/mms_farnsworth/page/n552/mode/thumb. Friedman, Alice. People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, and Philip Johnson. American Architectural History, 1998. Henderson, Susan R. “Bachelor Culture in the Work of Adolf Loos.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), vol. 55, no. 3, 2002, pp. 125–135. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1425531. Accessed 30 Jan. 2020. Sanders, Joel. Curtain Wars. http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/16/curtain-wars Walker, Lynne. “Home Making: An Architectural Perspective.” Signs, vol. 27, no. 3, 2002, pp. 823–835. JSTOR, www. jstor.org/stable/10.1086/337927. Accessed 30 Jan. 2020. Wendl, Nora. “Sex and Real Estate, Reconsidered: What Was the True Story Behind Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House?” ArchDaily. ArchDaily, July 3, 2015. https://www.archdaily.com/769632/sex-and-real-estate-reconsidered-whatwas-the-true-story-behind-mies-van-der-rohes-farnsworth-house. Wendl, Nora. “Notes Toward an Essay on the States of Matter, or: We, the Bubbles.” Notes Toward an Essay on the States of Matter, or: we, the bubbles. University of New Mexico. Accessed March 4, 2020. https://offramp.sciarc.edu/articles/notes-toward-an-essay-on-the-states-of-matter-or-we-the-bubbles. Wharton, Edith. The Decoration of Houses: By Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman. New York, London: Charles Scribner, B.J. Batsford, 1898. Whitt, Rachel. “Historic Shadows in a Glass House :: School of Architecture and Planning | The University of New Mexico.” University of New Mexico School of Architecture. Accessed March 4, 2020. https://saap.unm.edu/newsevents/2019/11/historic-shadows-in-a-glass-house.html.
PRECEDENTS “I Listened to the Echoes of your Voice: Nora Wendl Clean Living: Nora Wendl Veil: Fujiko Nakaya We Know How to Order: Bryony Roberts Studio Inverting Neutra: Bryony Roberts Studio Pliable Plane: Anni Albers Geometry of Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House illuminated with red lasers: Iker Gil and Luftwerk
THANK YOU To my Studio Professors, Taka Sarui and Julia Molloy, for opening my mind and always keeping me on track To my Thesis Seminar Professor, Alan Ruiz, for his wonderful and always gracious assistance and guidance To my Topics in American Design professor, David Brody, for thoughtfully introducing me to Edith To Scott Mehaffey, Executive Director at the Farnsworth House, for generously sharing their archive and research for the exhibit “Edith Farnsworth Reconsidered� To my inspirational and endlessly creative classmates To my supportive and loving family and friends And most of all, to Edith, who will stay with me long after this thesis is over.