The Edith Farnsworth House is a Mies van der Rohe designed masterpiece located in Plano, Illinois just outside of Chicago. First conceived in 1945 as a country retreat for the client, Dr. Edith Farnsworth, the house as finally built appears as a structure of Platonic perfection against a complementary ground of informal landscape. This landscape is an integral aspect of Mies van der Rohe’s aesthetic conception. The house faces the Fox River just to the south and is raised 5 feet 3 inches above the ground, its thin, white I-beam supports contrasting with the darker, sinuous trunks of the surrounding trees. The calm stillness of the man-made object contrasts also with the subtle movements, sounds, and rhythms of water, sky and vegetation. The house museum welcomes over 10,000 guests annually from all over the world. It is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a house museum.