Modern living : Farnsworth House and Lake Shore Drive apartments

On the modest scale of the single-family dwelling, the Farnsworth House (1946-51) also illustrates the principle of the open volume, acting as a modern interpretation of the Japanese tea pavilion. Mies van der Rohe was unable to produce more affordable versions of this bucolic, luxurious shelter. On the other hand, in Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan, he built America's first steel-framed residential towers, focusing on perfecting the curtain wall of their facades, for which he constantly devised solutions that favored aesthetic effects over strict adherence to structural truth.