COLUMBUS THE ARCHITECTURE AFICIONADO INDIANA
FOUNDED 1821
WHEN YOU THINK about the cities best known for modern architecture, Columbus, Indiana, might not come to mind. The American Institute of Architects, however, ranked it sixth in the nation for its innovation and design, behind only Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
Located less than an hour from Indianapolis, Columbus boasts more than 70 buildings designed by famous architects, including Eero Saarinen (of the Gateway Arch), I.M. Pei, Harry Weese, Deborah Berke, Robert Venturi, Eliel Saarinen, and Richard Meier.
It wasn't by chance that this city, now home to 48,000, became an architectural gem. It was the vision the former Cummins Corp. CEO J. Irwin Miller had for his hometown. “Every one of us lives and moves all his life within the limitations, sight, and influence of architecture—at home, at school, at church and at work,” he once noted. “The influence of architecture with which we are surrounded in our youth affects our lives, our standards, our tastes when we are grown, just as the influence of the parents and teachers with which we are surrounded in our youth affects us as adults.” As The New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote, “Columbus, Indiana, and J. Irwin Miller are almost holy words in architectural circles.”
Miller's former home, now named The Miller House, is considered to be among the most important midcentury-modern residences in the nation. The home was masterminded by Eero Saarinen, the
