Special places archive

The Farnsworth house

This is the website of the friends of the Farnsworth house — activists who successfully campaigned to preserve this icon of modern architecture. This month the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, the National Trust of Historic Preservation and the Friends of the Farnsworth House bought the house at auction. Plans are being made to conserve and open the building as a house museum.

The friends’ website has an excellent collection of links to information about the architect (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), his client (Dr Edith Farnsworth), the house, and its significance as a seminal work of architecture. I’m disappointed that there is so little about Lord Palumbo, previous owner of the Farnsworth house. Palumbo is a connoiseur of architecture who bought the house from Edith Farnsworth in 1968 to add to his collection that also includes a house by Frank Lloyd Wright in Pennsylvania and a villa by Le Corbusier on the outskirts of Paris.