Case Study Analysis: Farnsworth House & The Glass House Jenny Diaz
FARNSWORTH HOUSE Mies Van Der Rohe - Architect Edith Farnsworth - Client Plano Illinois Elevated (avoid flooding from near by river) Architecture & Nature A place to escape to and relax
49 Built 1949
51 Built 1951
GLASS HOUSE Philip Johnson - Architect Philip Johnson - Client New Canan Connecticut Planted on ground Brown brick & black steel frame A place to be comfortable as oneself
"Mies talks about "free space", but his space is very fixed". (3.13)
"Promoting the mystical idea that "less is more"...they are promoting unlivabiltiy, stripped-down emptiness, lack of storage space and therefroe lack of possessions". (3.13)
"The guest house appears to be a windowless bunker a defensible space of intimacy as well as a "closet". (3.22)
"This house with its four walls of glass, I feel like a prowling animal, always on the alert". (3.13)
"A form of exhibitionism". (3.17) "The house appeared to be a fish bowl in which his life was put on display for all to see". (3.22)
"I can't even put a clothes hanger in my house without considering how it affects everything from the outside". (3.13)
"The idea of a glass house, where somebody just might be looking-naturally, you don't want them to be looking. But what about it? That little edge of danger in being caught". (3.17)
"Farnsworth had very little of a "private life" to conceal: as a single woman, the only thing that could possibly be worth hiding was her night gown, the sign for her body". (3.16)
"The cylindrical brick chimney at the core of the glass house makes an obvious & clearly ironic reference to the architecture of the traditional American family home and to the sentimentalized view of domesticity". (3.22)
"Unlike Johnson's glass house, which features clusters of large and small objects throughout the interior and doorways on all four walls, the interior of the Farnsworth house in unrelenting in its ordered geometry - & this was something Farnsworth discovered only through living in the house over time". (3.17)
"For Johnson, who unlike Farnsworth had a sophisticated grasp of architectural language, there was no question that each element in the design had a carefully constructed meaning". (3.22)
"A bitterly fought struggle over who was, and who was not, a "normal" American, a member of a family, living life in the "right" way. Just as Edith Farnsworth confronted these issues, so did Philip Johnson". (3.21)
"Service core becomes a diagram of the house as a machine, the kitchen and the back-to-back bathrooms stand in a logical, utilitarian relationship to one another". (3.24)
"Metaphoric, discursive & picturesque, the domestic landscape encourage movement through the space". (3.24)