The Iconic Glass House Built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe—and the Lawsuit That Cast a Shadow Over It

The Iconic Glass House Built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe—and the Lawsuit That Cast a Shadow Over It

It’s tempting, in telling the story of the Edith Farnsworth House, to break out clichés like “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” For the residence in question is made predominantly of glass, or rather glass and steel, and its first owner turned out to have more than a few stones for its architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the last director of the Bauhaus, who’d immigrated from Nazi Germany to the United States in the late …