Located in the north-western Illinois prairies near the Fox River – a river that overflows its banks each spring—The Farnsworth House was the first of Mies van der Rohe’s steel and glass clear span buildings. The space between the two horizontal planes of the house’s floor and roof is subdivided into interconnecting exterior and interior living areas. The interior living area is enclosed by large glass windows and is subtly defined into living, sleeping and kitchen spaces by a free-standing service core. The exterior open porch is approached by a low flight of steps, broken at mid-point by a floating terrace.

This tranquil pavilion of steel and glass, from which every seasonal change is experienced, floats six feet above the ground and is visually open to the landscape. In its relationship to the natural surroundings, there exists no suggestion of a contrived formal composition; indeed, the building’s existence in the landscape would seem almost fortuitous were it not for the harmony which has been established between the architecture and the terrain. Independent, yet at the same time interdependent, this alliance between the organic and the inorganic creates a poetic image for the architecture of the 20th century.