«The history of glass
houses is horrible,» he added, referring to historic buildings like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth
House near Plano, Ill., which sits on and was
damaged by the
Fox River.
Tragically, the
house has been
damaged a number of times by severe floods from the nearby
Fox River (since, although Mies designed the
house with sufficient clearance for floods, urban and industrial development upriver in ensuing years caused the river to flood more extensively than Mies had anticipated — click here for some horrifying pictures of some recent flooding).