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18393.pdf (11.33 MB)
ETD Abstract Container
Abstract Header
Living with nature the Farnsworth House and the environmental successes and failures of Modernist architecture
Author Info
Williams, James J, M.B.A.
Permalink:
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1445342413
Abstract Details
Year and Degree
2015, MSARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture.
Abstract
This Thesis focuses on the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois. The weekend home was designed and realized by Modernist architect Mies Van der Rohe. The house is now a museum and has been described by its curators as exemplary of the International Style and the Modern Movement. The original owner, Dr. Edith Farnsworth, commissioned Mies to build a retreat house for her beginning in 1945. There was never any written contract, only a verbal agreement between Mies and Dr. Farnsworth. Most written accounts by architectural critics and historians in the 20th century regarding the Modern Movement have been based on the assumption that the essence of Modernist buildings resides in their forms, structure, materials and functional accommodations. Despite frequent mention of function, however, there has been little scholarship on the environmental and mechanical aspects of Modernist architecture. With the exception of Reyner Banham’s pioneering book, The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, few have written with authority regarding a critically important aspect of Modernist structures: do they create comfortable environments? More to the point, because Modernism argued for functional efficiency, how many Modernists buildings are efficient? Couched in more contemporary terms, a better question might be: are Modernism’s environmental comforts sustainable? For a Master’s Thesis on this subject, it is not practicable to cover a large selection of International Style and Modernist buildings, nor is it feasible to cover the scores of architectural histories about the aesthetics, materials, form and function of these buildings. For the sake of simplicity, this thesis focuses primarily on the environmental and mechanical aspects of The Farnsworth House. This essay is the first to look carefully at the Farnsworth House’s thermal environment and the active and passive heating and cooling systems that create it.
Committee
Patrick Snadon, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Nnamdi Elleh, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Subject Headings
Architectural
;
Engineering
Keywords
Environmental Comforts
;
Mechanical Systems
;
Passive Heating Cooling
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Citations
Williams, M., J. J. (2015).
Living with nature the Farnsworth House and the environmental successes and failures of Modernist architecture
[Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1445342413
APA Style (7th edition)
Williams, M., James.
Living with nature the Farnsworth House and the environmental successes and failures of Modernist architecture.
2015. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis.
OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1445342413.
MLA Style (8th edition)
Williams, M., James. "Living with nature the Farnsworth House and the environmental successes and failures of Modernist architecture." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1445342413
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)
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Document number:
ucin1445342413
Download Count:
11,387
Copyright Info
© 2015, some rights reserved.
Living with nature the Farnsworth House and the environmental successes and failures of Modernist architecture by James J Williams M.B.A. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.