Let the Outside in the Swamps and High Grasses with the Utmost Difficulty.Ireceived Awarm Edith Farnsworth Abandoned a Career As a Violinist to Study Medicine
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P2JW081000-4-C00700-1--------XA Voyage of Mercy Gresham’s Law USS Jamestown A life of the and the starving poor brilliant banker to of Ireland C9 Queen Elizabeth I C8 READ ONLINE AT WSJ.COM/BOOKSHELF BOTHE WALLOKSTREET JOURNAL. S**** Saturday/Sunday, March21-22, 2020 | C7 A Dandy Among The Azande The Anthropological Lens By Christopher Morton Oxford,226 pages,$40 BY ADAM KUPER .E.EVANS-PRITCHARD wasalegendary ethnographer of colonial African societies and a masterly interpreter of EAfrican magic and religion. Between 1926 and 1939 he made aseries of field studies in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. These were his gloryyearsas an ethnographic explorer.Healso published, between 1937 and 1956, four of the 20th century’smost influential ethnographic monographs and several hundred research reports and theoretical papers. Part of Evans-Pritchard’senduring appeal is his style.CliffordGeertz, a leading American anthropologist— and no mean stylist himself—judged that “therehas been no greater master” of the “OxbridgeSenior Common Room” tone,instancing Evans- Pritchard’s laconic Arevaluation of comment on his deploy- a great Oxford ment as a ethnographer guerrilla and interpreter officer in Sudan during of African (2) World WarII: magic and “This was religion. just what I HIGHSMITH wanted and M. OL what Icould CAR do,for Ihad made researches in the HOME WORK The Farnsworth House’s windows were the largest sheets of plate glass then available—but fogged up all too frequently. Southern Sudan forsome yearsand spokewith ease some of its languages.” Then thereisthe mode that Geertz dubs Akobo realism: “I started with my forceoffifteen Anuak forthe upper Akobo.Wegot through Let the Outside In the swamps and high grasses with the utmost difficulty.Ireceived awarm Edith Farnsworth abandoned a career as a violinist to study medicine. She was 42, welcome from the inhabitantsofthese unmarried and successful when she convinced Mies van der Rohe to build her a house. upstream villages forthey remembered me well from my earlier visit.” All this—the fieldwork,the books, Broken Glass Beam, acolumnist forthe Boston Globe way that the Parthenon is adistillation the style—has been subjected to By AlexBeam and the author of several nonfiction of ancient Greek temple architecture. abundant commentary. In “The Random House, 337pages,$28 books, is not an architecturecritic or As the design evolved, the architect- Anthropological Lens: Rethinking E.E. historian, butthat is all to the good. client relationship developed intoaclose Evans-Pritchard,” Christopher Morton BY WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI “Broken Glass” is an engrossing in-depth friendship,and most likely abrief ro- introduces anovel perspective. His narrativeofhow the human interaction mance. In 1947,amodel of the house was source forthis book is the archiveof HE MOST CELEBRATED between client and architect produced featuredinaone-man exhibition of some 2,600 fieldwork photographs that midcenturymodern house afamous house.Mies vander Rohe was Mies’swork at the Museum of Modern Evans-Pritcharddonated to Oxford in the United Statesisthe one of the most influential architectsof Art, although construction did not begin University’s Pitt RiversMuseum, where Farnsworth House outside the 20th century, and Mr.Beam provides until two yearslater.The delaywas Mr.Morton is the curator of photo- Plano,Ill., designed by an exceptionally perceptivecharacter partly the result of steel rationing,partly graph and manuscript collections. TLudwig Mies vander Rohe in 1945.The study of this complexand oftenimpene- because Mies’spracticehad suddenly Although Evans-Pritchard’s steel-and-glasspavilion is nowowned by trable figure. become very busy,and partly because he ethnographic descriptions were,as the National Trust forHistoric Preser- Farnsworth and Mies met at adinner wasagreat procrastinator.But he was Geertz noted, “intensely visual,” Mr. vation, which maintains it and opens it party on Chicago’sNorth Side in 1945. also fastidious.The exposed steel col- Morton concedes that he “remained to the public.The minimalist interior is It wasamomentous encounter.She umns of the house were sandblasted and mediocreasaphotographer in both a furnished with the architect’sfamous casually mentioned that she had just given four coatsofwhitepaint; the win- technical and compositional sense furniture—apair of Tugendhat lounge bought land in thecountry, and asked dows were the largest sheetsofplate throughout his career.” Theauthor chairs,three Brno desk chairs, aBar- the architect if one of his young employ- glassthen available; the floor washand- claims,nevertheless, and plausibly celona couch—iconic 1930s designs ees might be able to design aweekend selected slabs of travertine; the paneling enough, that by attending to this made out of chromed metal and leather. house forher.“Itold her Iwould not of the core that contained the bathrooms photographic archivehecan come up Thereisnocluttertomar the ethereal, be interested in anormal house,but if (the only enclosed rooms in the house) with fresh insightsintothe way Evans- Zen-likespace, no bookshelves,nopaint- it could be fine and interesting,then I wasprimavera,atropical hardwood. Pritchard’sstudies were shaped “by ings, no knickknacks. would do it,” Mies later recalled. Theconstruction took two years. By the historical contexts of his fieldwork, Did someone really livethis way?The Farnsworth and Mies were formida- then the friendship between Farnsworth itscolonial and academic structures, truth is they didn’t—the National Trust ble individuals.She was42, unmarried, and Mies had cooled. Some of that was the agencyofhis local collaborators.” tableau is apolitefiction. Theoriginal from awell-to-do Chicagofamily.She the result of the inevitable strains that To be sure, the images need hadabandoned occur when adream becomes reality and interpretation. Mr.Morton explains,for apromising ca- aesthetic goals come up against the instance, that the recurrent portraitsof reer as aconcert mundane demands of everyday life. For stiff-backed, glassy-eyed men are violinist to study example,Mies reluctantly provided a throwbacks to an already obsolescent medicine and be- fireplace, but resisted screening-in the genreof“racial” studies,inwhich came arespect- porch, even though the low-lying site Evans-Pritchardhimself had no interest. ed nephrologist, wasmosquito-infested. Farnsworth, who Theauthor also pointsout that sitters teacherand med- was6feet tall, wanted the free-standing or bystandersmay subvert the ical researcher closet to screen her sleeping area, but photographer’s message, but intentions overseeing her Mies insisted that it be only 5feet high. and meaningsare sometimes hardto ownlab.Mr. Other strains were financial: the house pin down. One photograph shows Beam describes had been budgeted at $40,000,but the Evans-Pritchardinfull colonial gear, her as amid- totalcost wascloser to twicethat with pith helmet, short khaki pants, BOX SET owner,Dr. Edith Farnsworth, furnished centuryanomaly,aprofessional woman amount.Farnsworth ponied up,but pipe in mouth, in the middle of agroup Mies’s her weekend house with comfortable who had “navigated the world more finally an unanticipated bill pushed her of Nuer boys who aresaluting,sticks design Scandinavian chaiseslongues,wicker or lessonher own, and didn’t seem over the edge, and she ordered all fur- slung on their shoulderslikerifles.Just was a dining chairs, aday bed with throw cowedbythe prospect of continuing ther expenses to cease and held back the innocent fun? No doubt it would all graphic cushions,North African rugs and potted that way.” Mies,nearly 60,was acon- final payment of several thousand dol- have seemed very different at the time. distillation plants; not astick of chromed metal and firmed loner who had lefthis wifeand lars(Mies’sofficewas acting as the gen- Mr.Morton might perhaps have paid of leather in the place. Mies had ordered threechildren long beforeemigrating eral contractor). It wasatthis time that moreattention to the images that modernist several of his owndesigns forthe from Germanyseven yearsearlier.He she refused the deliveryofthe furniture. Evans-Pritchardselected to illustratehis ideals. house—two MR chairs, two Barcelona wasalready famous,but had as yet Thewhole thing ended up in court. monographs.These were not, on the chairsand amatchingglasscoffee built little in the United States. The Mies hadbeen convinced by advisers whole,his ownphotographs.And while table—but Farnsworth rejected them all. Farnsworth commission wasachance to sue his client forthe outstanding manypictures in the archivefeature “I think the Barcelona chair is very hand- to changethat. expenses,and she counter-sued, claim- Africans wearing colonial outfits,the some but it is fearfully heavy and utterly Thenine-acreproperty in Plano,an ingthat he had been incompetent. Mr. illustrations in Evans-Pritchard’sbooks unsuitable forasmall countryhouse,” hour from Chicago, included aspectacu- Beam’s lively account of the trial, based typically represent Azande dressed in shesaid, “the placewould look likea larly beautiful meadowbeside the river. on transcripts, is fascinating.Both sides traditional fabrics and skins,and naked Helena Rubinstein salon.” By then, the Afterone of several companionable shaded the truth. Farnsworth claimed to young Nuer men and women. doctor and her architect were no longer excursions to the siteMies concluded, have never been shown aplan, but Mies’s An evocativepictureofEvans- on speaking terms. “So Ithink we should build the house of