Jeff Bridges To Play Architect Mies van der Rohe In Movie About Farnsworth House

By Emma G. Gallegos in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 10, 2017 6:10PM

Left: Modernist Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) Right: the man who will play him, Jeff Bridges. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SBIFF)

Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal are reportedly teaming up again to tell the story of Chicago architect Mies van der Rohe's legendary Farnsworth home.

The pair starred together in Crazy Heart in 2009 and a source told Showbiz 411, "Jeff and Maggie have been looking for another movie to do, and this script really appealed to them." The rumors of the movie were reported by the site, but they haven't been confirmed by anyone else.

Bridges will reportedly play the role of the modernist German architect who was internationally famous but who left a particularly deep imprint on Chicago architecture, in buildings like the the Chicago Federal Center and One IBM Plaza. The glass-walled Farnsworth House in Plano—a town 60 miles southwest Chicago, near Aurora—is one of van der Rohe's most famous projects. Gyllenhaal is reportedly set to star as Dr. Edith Farnsworth, the Chicago nephrologist who commissioned the home in 1945.

There was plenty of drama behind the scenes of the project that was finished in 1951. The Chicago Tribune notes that Farnsworth took van der Rohe to court when the project went far over budget, though van der Rohe prevailed. Architectural Digest says Farnsworth publicly complained the design ended up being unlivable in a 1953 House Beautiful article: “The truth is that in this house with its four walls of glass I feel like a prowling animal, always on the alert. I am always restless. Even in the evening. I feel like a sentinel on guard day and night.”

There has also been quite a bit of speculation over the years that Farnsworth was more than just a friend and a patron to van der Rohe. Farnsworth's sister told van der Rohe's biographer in the 1980s that they had a romance—one that seemed to sour over the home.

The home is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Currently, there has been a lot of debate about how to preserve it from the periodic flooding of the Fox River. Some of the options include lifting the home or, controversially, even moving it to higher ground. Preservationists think the movie could help bring attention to this important landmark.

"It would certainly generate more public interest in the Farnsworth House, and that's a good thing," Maurice Parrish, the executive director of the landmark, told the Trib. He added that the rumors of a romance between patron and architect are "pure speculation."

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth house in Plano (Photo by John Crouch via the Chicagoist Flickr Pool)