The Edith Farnsworth House book. © Signals.
During this program attendees will get a behind-the-scenes look at the book The Edith Farnsworth House: Architecture, Preservation, Culture, published in 2024 by The Monacelli Press coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of the opening of the house to the public. Author Michelangelo Sabatino and designer Chris Grimley will discuss the research process and design considerations involved in shaping this remarkable book, winner of a Docomomo Modernism in America “Inventory/Survey Citation of Merit” Award.
“The wide-ranging array of ephemera, photographs, and drawings―handsomely presented―will surely impress archive obsessed readers.”
—Architectural Record
About the book
One of the most famous residences in modern history, a glass and steel marvel that seems to float above its site, the Edith Farnsworth House had been legendary in the public imagination long before it could be widely accessed. This book charts the house’s original design by Mies van der Rohe and periods of neglect, flooding, and new ownership by Lord Peter Palumbo.
Now publicly accessible and celebrating twenty years of being owned and administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, this icon of modern architecture commissioned by client and patron Edith Farnsworth now gets its due. The Edith Farnsworth House is one of the most prized residences in modern architectural history, whose sometimes fraught history culminates in its publicly accessible life today.
The book, which newly foregrounds the key role of client Edith Farnsworth, is written and edited by Michelangelo Sabatino, who contributes deep expertise on modernist architecture, and includes an essay by architectural historian Dietrich Neumann, excerpts of Edith Farnsworth’s unpublished memoir, as well as interviews with Mies’s grandson Dirk Lohan, and the house’s second owner, Lord Peter Palumbo. Published in association with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, this book is published is a trove of cultural and visual history, and includes photographs by Hedrich Blessing, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Annie Leibovitz, in addition to documentation of cultural collaborations with artists, designers, and performance troupes such as Virgil Abloh, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, and Gerard & Kelly.
The book includes contributions by Ron Henderson, Hilary Lewis, Scott Mehaffey, and Dietrich Neumann.
→ The Edith Farnsworth House: Architecture, Preservation, Culture (The Monacelli Press, 2024).
“Reveals that so much has been left out of this architectural icon’s most familiar narratives until now.”
—Design Miami
The Edith Farnsworth House book spread. © Signals.
The Edith Farnsworth House book spread. © Signals.
The Edith Farnsworth House book spread. © Signals.
The Edith Farnsworth House book spread. © Signals.
The Edith Farnsworth House book spread. © Signals.
The Edith Farnsworth House book spread. © Signals.
