The Farnsworth Home

The structure of the Farnsworth Home highlights the simplicity of its construction. (photo: Jon Miller)

Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth Home serves as a cultural reflection of the post World War II era’s modern industrial tides and of the abstract expressionism movement cultivated by artists during this period. Not only did the architect take a fresh outlook on the home's minimal structure and its materials, but he also took into account the concept of free-flowing spaces and the endless limitations of an open plan.

The many peculiarities of the house were built to provide a notion of how one should live and feel in the space. By constructing floor-to-ceiling windows as the barrier to the outside world and by lifting the structure onto stilts, one gets a horizontally elongated view of the surrounding nature at tree-level height. This was intended to give a sense of vulnerability and curiosity of what lies beyond the confines of the home. 

The interior of the Farnsworth House provides an escape to the surrounding landscape. (photo: Jon Miller)

Instead of having a view of the tree trunks, the architect built the house on stilts to capture the fullness of the trees in order to provide a sense of protection for the inhabitant. From every angle inside the home, the landscape is brought into the interior to the capture the essence of living amidst the natural world. 

The central wall provides the only division of space within the structure. (photo: Jon Miller)

The vast window space and the vacuity of the solid, white ceiling draw the eye outward to the landscape rather than to the interior of the home. The lack of a formal exterior wall promotes the atmosphere of the home as free and without boundary to the world around it. 

Lastly, this structure lacks a central room like most homes. Instead of being enclosed, the rooms are suggested by a central wall and extend towards the landscape.

Unified Structure: The Inca Empire

Inca architectural patterns are demonstrated at the sanctuary of Machu Picchu, Peru. (photo: Jeff Bridges)

Throughout the Inca Empire, standardized patterns of building helped to define a unified architectural style that was carried out in the structures.  Inca architectural forms draw from a basic design with changes proportions and spatial arrangement for the different functions of the empire.

Most buildings are constructed in masonry style with a rectangular shape and a thatched roof, though temples feature rounded walls.  The style and quality of masonry determines the status of the buildings; whereas a house features rubble masonry, a religious or state building features well-fitted blocks. Though the high masonry is precisely fit, the shapes of the blocks are irregular polygonal shapes rather than standard squares. 

Irregular blocks are fitted together to form a continuous surface in the high masonry technique of Inca architectural construction. (photo: Hakan Svensson)

The Inca settlement commonly exhibits agricultural terraces, sophisticated irrigation systems and uniform housing compounds called canchas. Canchas are typically composed of an identical structure, and the quality of masonry determines the status of the inhabitants. 

Canchas exhibit standardized construction in the housing settlements of the Inca Empire. (photo: Mark Bergin)

Trapezoidal forms are a constant reference in Inca architecture, rather it be in the lintel of a doorway or in a niche. Most Inca buildings provide niches within the interior walls in a symmetrical and proportional arrangement. 

Niches are a characteristic feature of Inca Architecture as they are exhibited here at Ollantaytambo, Peru. (photo: Jason Langley)

To build the niches, workers first formed a level wall up to the base of the nice and created niche frames by stacking stones to form their shape. The gaps between the niches were filled with large and small blocks, but attention to a proper fit was not crucial. Niche frames allowed for proper sizing and placement within in the disarray of stones surrounding them.  

As for the walls of the buildings, the corners were formed first and the walls were built from the outside inward towards the center. This allowed for laborers to work on both ends of the wall at the same time and created less room for mistakes in jointing the two walls together. 

Creating Shapes: La Maison de Verre

La Maison de Verre is illuminated to highlight the geometric shape of the exterior façade. (photo: "La Maison de Verre" published by Thames & Hudson)

Through his work on La Maison de Verre, Pierre Chareau explored the nature of geometric forms in order to create the shape of the façade and to manipulate the living areas inside the home for their different purposes. This inspiration offers insight into the building’s structural capacity of numbers and geometry, and it heightens the building’s prestige by utilizing these perfect shapes.

           

When viewing La Maison de Verre, the focal point of the building is the large, rectangular glass window that creates the front exterior wall.  This geometric shape contributes to the level of modernity that the building expresses in its use and in its structure.

The square window blocks are set into a grid pattern to form structural support for the glass wall and to provide the overall shape of the façade. The precision of this form expresses prestige in craftsmanship and sets the building apart from others its time.

The  interior of La Maison de Verre exhibits the geometric structure of the steel frame. (photo: paris-architecture.info)

In the interior of La Maison de Verre, the large geometric shape of the glass wall pours a vast amount of light into the living areas, which regular windows would be unable to provide. The shape of these windows offers the largest possible amount of translucent light into the salon, which, in return, gives the interior of the building its overall mood and aesthetic appeal.

The rectilinear beams that provide the building’s support also give shape to the rooms and divide the living areas for the separate spheres of family life. The rooms are set into different sizes of rectangular shapes to provide for their different functions, rather it be smaller rooms for the doctor’s office or larger rooms for the common areas.

The precision of these spaces provides order to the mechanic nature of the home, allowing the inhabitants to revel in the simplicity of its form by living in clearly organized sections of private and public life.

Because the home is built inside a previous structure, the main means of organization of the building are the steel beams. The beams highlight the geometric shapes by providing parallel, vertical divisions inside the rooms to capture the ease of the home’s structure and its contemporary foundation.

If Pierre Chareau had employed more organic forms into La Maison de Verre, the effect of light into the rooms would not have created as bold of a statement, and the mechanized flow of the living areas would not have been as systematically organized. 

Overall, La Maison de Verre exhibits the efficiency and prestige of geometric forms in order to create a home that is both functional and capable of making a statement while staying true to the ease of its rectangular form.