After this event, Peter Palumbo and Dirk Lohan embarked on a costly restoration project (estimated at $500,000). 2008: the house was flooded by rains from the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Water levels reached approximately above the floor and the stilts upon which the house rests. Much of the furniture was saved by elevating it above the flood waters. The house was closed to the public for the remainder of 2008 for repairs and reopened for public visitation in spring 2009. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has been developing a flood mitigation plan to deal with the ongoing threat to the structure posed by the river. Other structures Barnsworth Gallery It was announced in 2011 that the Illinois Institute of Technology was going to build a permanent exhibition space for the wardrobe that Edith Farnsworth commissioned for the Farnsworth House. The wardrobe was extensively damaged in the 1996, 1997, and 2008 floods, with its large size rendering any possible evacuation attempt costly and difficult. In an attempt to protect the wardrobe, curators of the Farnsworth House decided to have the wardrobe put on permanent display near the visitor center on the site, which is well above the 500-year flood plain. Under the direction of Professor Frank Flury, students of the Illinois Institute of Technology designed and constructed the Barnsworth Gallery to house the wardrobe and serve as an exhibition space. Criticism and acclaim The building design received accolades in the architectural press, resulting in swarms of uninvited visitors trespassing on the property to glimpse this latest Mies building. As a result of the accusations contained in Edith Farnsworth's lawsuit, the house soon became a prop in the larger national social conflicts of the McCarthy era. The weekend house became a lightning rod for anti-modernist publications, exemplified in the April 1953 issue of House Beautiful, which attacked it as a "communist-inspired effort" to supplant traditional American styles. Large areas of glass wall, flat roofs, purging of ornament, and a perceived lack of traditional warmth and coziness were characteristics of the International Style that were particular talking points of attack. The poor energy efficiency of the Farnsworth House has been widely discussed as well. Farnsworth herself expressed dismay at the house's poor temperature control and tendency to attract insects when illuminated at night. Nonetheless, the Farnsworth House has continued to receive critical acclaim as a masterpiece of the modernist style, and Mies