Bells atop the Farnsworth House? Yes, and more surprises inside

I always learn something new about Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House whenever Prof.

Wendy Koenig and I take our North Central College class there in what has become a rite

of spring. This year was no different. There were three revelations last Saturday:

1) A SUPER-FLEXY GLASS WALL--The wind was blowing hard during our visit. After we went

inside--following the advice of Whitney French, the house's executive director--I put my

hand on one of the big windows that face toward an old sugar maple tree (above) and the

Fox River. A gust blew. The window inflected inward by a good inch or more, just had

Whitney had predicted. "Holy sh--," I said to the class, not sounding very professorial.

Fortunately, the rest of the house's windows don't flex as much. This one, Whitney said,

replaced a window that was smashed in the 1996 flood that inundated the Farnsworth. 

2) HIDDEN LIGHT SWITCHES--Joan Knutson, the delightful docent who accompanied us to the

house, opened one of the kitchen cabinets to reveal--tuh duh!--the Farnsworth House's

light switches. There are floor and table lamps the inside the house, but it turns out

that there are uplights on the Farnsworth's primavera wood cabinets, too. Joan informed

us that the house's second owner, Lord Peter Palumbo, had the uplights kept on all night

--presumably to enhance security. Mies, of course, would have wanted to hide the light

switches. Who needs such bothersome clutter in a temple of minimalism?

Farnsworthbells 3) ROOFTOP BELLS--The Farnsworth House has bells on its rooftop (left).

Who knew? Whitney explained that the notes of Myron Goldsmith, Mies' chief assistant on

the job, state the following: "provide bell for phone outside on roof." Why have the

bells? Because the house's owner and namesake, Edith Farnsworth, liked to garden and the

bells would have let her know when the phone inside was ringing.

In a follow-up email , Whitney attached the accompanying photo (below), which shows Edith

tending to the landscape at her under-construction house. (Whitney thinks the photo

belongs to the Chicago History Museum.)

"It allows you to better imagine the purpose of the bell," she writes of the photo. "I

love this feature primarily because, in a house that is so timeless in its design, it is

pleasant to be reminded of its age by such idiosyncrasies."