Top: Edith Farnsworth House (Photo: Michael Biondo) Bottom: Philip Johnson's Glass House (Photo: Andrew Schones)
Please Note: This program has a rescheduled date (originally publicized as March 15, 2025).
During the late 1940s, two glass-walled pavilions were designed by then-leading modern architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. From their beginnings to the present, these houses have an intertwined history.
In 1930, Johnson commissioned Mies and his close collaborator Lily Reich to design his New York apartment and when he became the Museum of Modern Art’s first curator of architecture the following year, he began to promote the German-born architect in America. Although his early U.S. commissions weren’t realized, in 1938 Mies became head of the architecture school at Chicago’s Armour Institute (today’s Illinois Institute of Technology).
Six years later, Mies was commissioned to design a modern weekend house for Chicago nephrologist Edith Farnsworth. Johnson greatly admired the concept of the glass, travertine, and steel residence and became more familiar with it during frequent visits to Mies’s Chicago office as he curated a career retrospective of the architect’s works planned for MoMA in 1947. While Edith Farnsworth waited until 1949 to begin construction on her house, Johnson designed and built his own version—the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut—at a faster pace.
Important architects and designers from around the world made pilgrimages to both houses, which became the most written about and photographed International Style homes in the United States, if not the world. In 1972, when Farnsworth sold her weekend retreat to the British real estate investor and art patron Peter Palumbo, the houses began a new chapter: Johnson’s glass house inspired Palumbo’s vision for a renovation of the Farnsworth realized during the 1970s through ’90s.
Over the years, the National Trust for Historic Preservation acquired both houses, opening them to the public in 2004. The executive directors of each site, Scott Mehaffey (the Edith Farnsworth House) and Kirsten Reoch (the Glass House), discuss the fascinating shared history of these icons of Modernism.
World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1/2 credit*
General Information
*Enrolled participants in the World Art History Certificate Program receive 1/2 elective credit. Not yet enrolled? Learn about the program, its benefits, and how to register here.
