January 30, 1953 – Final arguments are heard
before Master in Chancery Jerome Nelson at the Kendall County circuit court in
architect Mies van der Rohe’s mechanic’s lien suit against Dr. Edith B.
Farnsworth. The suit was filed in July
of 1951, claiming that Dr. Farnsworth owed the architect $28,173 in unpaid fees
for a weekend home he designed for her on the Fox River. The doctor’s attorneys argue that Farnsworth
asked for a home to cost approximately $40,000 and ended up with one that cost
$73,872. They say further that the house
has a leaky roof and defects in its mechanical systems and that the travertine
floor has buckled. Attorney Randolph
Bohrer asserts that Van der Rohe is not properly qualified as an architect and
that exceeding the original cost estimate “is attributable either to gross
incompetence or stupidity of the plaintiff,” a man he labels “an ordinary
charlatan and an egoist of the Bauhaus school which has committed more frauds
upon this country than any other organization.”
[Chicago Daily Tribune, January
31, 1953]
Also on this date from an earlier blog entry . . .
January 30, 1947 -- Randall H. Cooper, executive secretary of the State Street council, asserts that redevelopment of Chicago's "blighted areas" is a necessity and that the Loop is "faced with more problems than ever before in its history." The continuing flight of families to the suburbs and the resulting loss of tax and business revenue had the merchants feeling blue. They would get bluer. The 1947 photo above was taken at Wells and Madison.
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