IN: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( MEESS; German: [mi:s]; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886 - August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He is commonly referred to and was addressed as Mies, his surname.

Between 1946 and 1951, Mies van der Rohe designed and built the Farnsworth House, a weekend retreat outside Chicago for an independent professional woman, Dr. Edith Farnsworth. Here, Mies explored the relationship between people, shelter, and nature. The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies. The highly crafted pristine white structural frame and all-glass walls define a simple rectilinear interior space, allowing nature and light to envelop the interior space. A wood-panelled fireplace (also housing mechanical equipment, kitchen, and toilets) is positioned within the open space to suggest living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls. No partitions touch the surrounding all-glass enclosure. Without solid exterior walls, full-height draperies on a perimeter track allow freedom to provide full or partial privacy when and where desired. The house has been described as sublime, a temple hovering between heaven and earth, a poem, a work of art. The Farnsworth House and its 60-acre (240,000 m2) wooded site was purchased at auction for US$7.5 million by preservation groups in 2004 and is now owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a public museum. The building influenced the creation of hundreds of modernist glass houses, most notably the Glass House by Philip Johnson, located near New York City and also now owned by the National Trust. The house is an embodiment of Mies' mature vision of modern architecture for the new technological age: a single unencumbered space within a minimal "skin and bones" framework, a clearly understandable arrangement of architectural parts. His ideas are stated with clarity and simplicity, using materials that are configured to express their own individual character.
QUESTION: What is the Farnsworth House?
IN: Alison Maria Krauss was born in Decatur, Illinois, to Fred and Louise Krauss. Her father was a German immigrant who came to the United States in 1952 and taught his native language. Her mother, of German and Italian descent, is the daughter of artists. Krauss grew up in the college town of Champaign, home to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Krauss made her recording debut in 1985 on the independent album, Different Strokes, featuring her brother Viktor Krauss, Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing their previous fiddler Andrea Zonn. Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail. Pennell remains one of her favorite songwriters and wrote some of her early work including the popular "Every Time You Say Goodbye". Later that year, she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band. Krauss' debut solo album was quickly followed by her first group album with Union Station in 1989, Two Highways. The album includes the traditional tunes "Wild Bill Jones" and "Beaumont Rag", along with a bluegrass interpretation of The Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider". Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.
QUESTION: How did Two Highways do with fans?
IN: Lata Mangeshkar ( pronunciation ) (born 28 September 1929) is an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer. She is one of the best-known and most respected playback singers in India. She has recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films and has sung songs in over thirty-six regional Indian languages and foreign languages, though primarily in Marathi and Hindi. She is the recipient of three National Film Awards, 12 Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards, four Filmfare Best Female Playback Awards, two Filmfare Special Awards, Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award and many more.

In the 1950s, Mangeshkar sang songs composed by various music directors of the period, including Anil Biswas (in films such as Tarana and Heer), Shankar Jaikishan, Naushad Ali, S. D. Burman, Pandit Amarnath Husan Lal Bhagat Ram (in films like Bari Behan, Meena Bazaar, Afsana, Aadhi Raat, Ansoo, Chhoti Bhabi, Adal-e-Jehangir), C. Ramchandra, Hemant Kumar, Salil Chowdhury, Khayyam, Ravi, Sajjad Hussain, Roshan, Kalyanji-Anandji, Vasant Desai, Sudhir Phadke, Hansraj Behl, Madan Mohan, and Usha Khanna. She made her debut in Tamil playback singing with Vanaradham in 1956 (Uran Khotala dubbed in Tamil) with the Tamil song "Enthan Kannalan" picturised on Nimmi in the dubbed version composed by Naushad. Mangeshkar sang many raga-based songs for Naushad in movies such as Deedar (1951), Baiju Bawra (1952), Amar (1954), Uran Khatola (1955) and Mother India (1957). Ae Chorre Ki Jaat Badi Bewafa, a duet with G. M. Durrani, was her first song for composer, Naushad. The duo, Shankar-Jaikishan, chose Mangeshkar for Barsaat (1949), Aah (1953), Shree 420 (1955) and Chori Chori (1956). Before 1957, composer S. D. Burman chose Mangeshkar as the leading female singer for his musical scores in Sazaa (1951), House No. 44 (1955), and Devdas (1955). However a rift developed between Lata and Burman in 1957, and Lata did not sing Burman's compositions again until 1962. Mangeshkar won a Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer for Salil Chowdhury's composition "Aaja Re Pardesi" from Madhumati (1958). In the early fifties, Lata Mangeshkar's association with C. Ramchandra produced songs in movies such as Albela (1951), Shin Shinkai Bublaa Boo (1952), Anarkali (1953), Pehli Jhhalak (1954), Azad (1955), Asha (1957) and Amardeep (1958). For Madan Mohan, she performed for films like Baagi (1953), Railway Platform (1955), Pocketmar (1956), Mr. Lambu (1956), Dekh Kabira Roya (1957), Adalat (1958), Jailor (1958), Mohar (1959) and Chacha Zindabad (1959).
QUESTION:
Were the 1950s her golden years?