Abstract
The exhibition Edith Farnsworth, Reconsidered, on view from March 2020 to December 2021, presents the Farnsworth House (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Plano, Illinois, 1951) as it was inhabited by the client and reveals the lived history of the house to the public for the first time. Focusing on the period from 1951 to 1954, shortly after Dr. Farnsworth took ownership and just before a flood destroyed the interior furnishings from this time, the exhibition also traces a timeline of uncertainty: in 1951, Mies van der Rohe initiated the lawsuit van der Rohe vs. Farnsworth (1951–1955), suing his former client for unpaid bills and for ownership of the structure. This essay follows the chronology of that trial and its outcome, taking the temporary exhibition and heavily guarded trial transcript into consideration as twin artifacts: both of which occupy nearly the same period of time, and both institutionally “redacted” in order to protect the patriarchal legacy of the architect. Redaction, here, is seen as temporary: foreshadowing the future liberation of histories from the institutions that bind them.
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