An excerpt from American Modern: Community; Architecture; Columbus, Indiana, written by Matt Shaw and photographed by Iwan Baan
A new book chronicles the historic civic project that built one of the most architecturally important cities in the country—and shows how its working-class citizens fit into the forever-modernist landscape.
IN THE MID-1940s, Columbus industrialist J. Irwin Miller, head of Cummins Engine Company, began an extraordinary side project. In an effort to draw in more white-collar talent, he commissioned a roster of titans in the world of modernist architecture to design a series of crisp, angular, and sometimes brutally stark buildings in his hometown. That campaign brought the work of renowned architects such as Robert Venturi, Harry Weese, and Eliel and Eero Saarinen to Bartholomew County, an almost surreal accomplishment. “The concept of not reaping your field to its border—nor maximizing personal profits but deferring some of your land or harvest to the public realm (your neighbors)—became a foundation for Miller’s humancentric approach to business,” writes author and Columbus native Matt Shaw in the sweeping monograph American Modern: Community; Architecture; Columbus, Indiana, available this month from Monacelli. Shaw’s in-depth history, excerpted here alongside images by the book’s photographer, Iwan Baan, tells how Miller’s world-class vision played out in the everyday structures of a town that remains, as Shaw describes it, “the highest of high Modernism, the best ideas from around the world—absorbed and made more pragmatic, smaller, and more humane in a community where purely top-down solutions would have never worked.”
Cleo Rogers Memorial Library 1969, I.M. Pei
The Cleo Rogers Memorial Library represented the moment when it all came together for Columbus in a magnificent public space that Architectural Forum called “a physical center in the best architectural tradition … an urbane statement of the town’s civic aspirations in brick, concrete and bronze.”
Lincoln Center Ice Rink (Hamilton Community Center & Ice Arena) 1958, Harry Weese
Two outdoor rinks were flanked by a Weese-designed building that was conceived as a chalet, or a “Black Forest stage setting for exhilarating winter evenings under the stars.” The domestic interior is arranged around a fireplace, with a gabled roof with interior wood beams sitting on massive granite walls. According to Weese, “the permanent natural materials, the opaqueness, and the symmetry all [conspired] towards a civic, if informal character.”
First Baptist Church 1965, Harry Weese
Weese originally wanted First Baptist to be made of concrete … but the congregation insisted on brick walls and a slate roof. This could be considered a common thread through most of the design in Columbus. It was not the whims of one person supporting the architects’ intellectual projects, but rather real people employing architects and deploying architectural thinking as a means to improve their surroundings and meet their purpose.
Southside Elementary 1969, Eliot Noyes
Southside is the only building in Columbus designed in the High Brutalist style, with bold concrete forms that recall the public housing and postwar city centers around Britain, mainland Europe, and the Soviet Union.
Miller House and Garden 1957, Eero Saarinen
The Saarinen-designed Miller House served a dual purpose as the family home as well as a piece of social infrastructure that allowed [owners J. Irwin and Xenia Miller] to entertain out-of-town guests, including politicians, artists, musicians, business associates, and a host of other social contacts.
Pence Place Housing 1984, Charles Gwathmey
The destruction of low-income housing [contributed] to a housing shortage in the downtown area that has never truly been solved, although Charles Gwathmey of New York’s Gwathmey Siegel & Associates (GSA) completed two housing projects toward that goal: Sycamore Place, senior housing just blocks east of downtown in 1982, and Pence Place, HUD-subsidized housing in East Columbus in 1984.
Par 3 Golf Course Clubhouse 1972, Bruce Adams
Par 3 Golf Course’s clubhouse … has cedar siding with a shake roof reminiscent of the wood siding and supergraphics of Northern California’s Sea Ranch.
Fire Station No. 4 1968, Robert Venturi
Fire Station No. 4 continues to be one of the most visited buildings by tourists, but also one of the most misunderstood. In 1976, Venturi wrote a letter to the Visitors Center upon hearing that tour guides were refusing to show it and claiming that “the building is a joke” and “the architect was making fun of Columbus.”
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 1988, Gunnar Birkerts
Comparing Lincoln Elementary and its neighbor across the street, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, both by Gunnar Birkerts, one can see the changes in American architecture from 1967 to 1988.
L. Francis Smith Elementary 1969, John Johnson
Smith Elementary is laid out in three concrete wings connected by prefabricated, corrugated metal tubes painted orange, yellow, green, and purple. As students move through the network of tubes and around the transparent courtyard, the choreography of the school day activates the courtyard and overlooking hallways.
