With a wealthy and devoted champion of architecture creating a vision for what it could become, the city of Columbus, Indiana is now known for its impressive collection of important modernist works of architecture.
It's no secret that we love architecture and we're often in discussion with customers about this, sharing stories of favourite sites each of us has visited or plan to go to. Recently we met some travellers from the United States who enlightened us about the architectural hotspot – Columbus, Indiana. We'd already come across one of the well known homes there, Miller House (1955) by Eero Saarinen, but we hadn't known a lot about the story of the Miller family who had been patrons of architecture in the city. Evidently the wealthy industrialist and philanthropist couple J. Irwin Miller and Xenia Miller were invested in the city and modernist architecture so much so that they had paid the architects' fees to design any new buildings being created, provided the architect was chosen from a list selected by the Millers.
The list of mid-century architects who eventually populated a city that is about the size of Nelson with new works of architecture is staggering. Architects represented in Columbus include Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli, and Richard Meier, along with public artworks by Henry Moore, Dale Chihuly, and Bernar Venet.
We've compiled a selection of our favourite locations throughout this incredible city, definitely now on our bucket list. We are pleased to represent a designer of a similar flavour, Harry Bertoia, in our current collection for sale, the iconic Diamond Chair along with a number of other designs from mid-century American designers.