Working At the Farnsworth House

I've been occasionally helping out a former professor of mine, Frank Flury, with one of his projects on the Farnsworth House site in Plano, IL. For those of you who are unacquainted it's considered one of the most significant works of architecture built in the 20^th century. The architect was Mies Van der Rohe, patron saint of IIT.

Frank built some nice doors using all wood joinery. I've never built a door from scratch, so it was nice to see it all go together.

Frank and Roland. Roland is an insane artist. He paints these huge acrylic paintings of steel structures that look like photographs. In the background is the Barnsworth project. The Farnsworth House sits on a flood plane so a place to house some of the significant furniture, specifically the dresser, was needed. 

Didn't have a tripod so I used the timer and a rock.

This was the last day that it was open during the season so we went in after hours and drank some whiskey.

It was much more pleasant than I would have imagined. The site at night lends itself to privacy and the home is very intimate; perfect for drinking with several people.

Picturequote

This is for the rats from yesterday.

"Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the monkeys and apes casually knock them down - toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings on Earth." - Carl Sagan

This is the power and steam plant next to the Materials and Minerals Building (M&M, the wood shop) on IIT's campus. M&M was the first building (1939) Mies built in the US. It's also where I make all my furniture.

Crown Hall - New Home

This is S.R. Crown Hall on IIT's Campus (photo from Wikipedia [I wasn't rocking a wide angle lens that day... or really any day. Anyone have a grand they want to give me?]). It's considered Mies van der Rohe's masterpiece and was made a National Historic Landmark in 2001.

Which is all a tad funny to me because I get to spend the next three years of my life cooped up in this building. Here's a photo of the inside:


The upper floor is wide open studio space; home to some 400-500 undergraduate and graduate architecture students. The basement houses a wood shop, spray booth, welding equipment, computer lab complete with huge printers and plotters, and an architectural library.