Blog

By Mary Jo Hoag, Class of 2007

Maybe you’ve seen the new movie titled Columbus? If you haven’t, I suggest you do because it’s a really fine film. And the star? The modernist architecture of Columbus, Indiana!

Columbus Indiana prides itself on being “unexpected and unforgettable.” the AIA ranks it 6th in the nation by for innovative architecture design. Wow! How is that possible? In early October Emily Clott, Suzy Ruder (about to become a new VEV), and I went to Columbus to find out why.

Suffice it to say Columbus doesn’t disappoint. This town of just over 44,000 people contains some of the best Mid-Century Modern architecture and art designed by some of the biggest names of the time. The story of how that happened is a good one.

J. Irwin Miller grew up in Columbus. After attending Yale and Oxford, he returned to Columbus to work for the family business, the Cummins Corporation, and was responsible for the company’s growth post-WWII. Miller was first Vice-President, then President, and finally the Chairman of Cummins. As Chairman, he established the Cummins Foundation in 1954. In 1957 he made an offer to Columbus that the city found hard to refuse; the Foundation would foot the bill for all the architects’ fees for any public building IF the developers would agree to use the handful of architects he designated. By this time, Irwin had befriended Eero Saarinen who designed his home, the Miller House, in 1953; it is now a National Historic Landmark (2000).

Miller’s offer to Columbus resulted in amazing Mid-Century masterpieces by the likes of Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I. M. Pei, Kevin Roche, Richard Meier, Harry Weese, Cesar Pelli, Gunnar Birkerts, and Myron Goldsmith. The buildings serve corporate, civic, religious, educational, banking, and medical purposes. There is even an ice skating rink!

We took a docent-led bus tour to see many of the buildings, and we also took a docent-led tour of the Miller House. Afterward, we drove around to look at buildings we missed on the bus tour and got out for closer looks at some we had seen earlier. If you looked only at buildings designed by famous architects, you would miss all the wonderful public art and parks in this beautiful small town!

We recommend that when you go to Columbus you take the tours led by excellent docents. It’s the only way you’ll see the Miller House, and you must see the Miller House! The Visitor’s Center offers a couple of short films about the city; the Center itself is in an adaptive re-use building from the 1890s.

All in all, one must say that Columbus really is “unexpected and unforgettable”!