Archinect - News

Restoration of Saarinen-designed First Christian Church tower completed in Columbus, Indiana

2024-02-23T08:03:00-05:00

The Landmark Columbus Foundation has shared photos of Louis Joyner Architect's completed tower restoration of the landmark First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana, designed by Eero Saarinen and his father, Eliel, in 1942.

The project took eight months to complete, wrapping up this past December.

The church’s 166-foot-high freestanding clock tower served as the main focus of the restoration work, which took place in four main parts, with repairs also needed to account for significant masonry cracking, rust, and water damage to its interior.

Photo: Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation

Contractors stabilized the 50 uppermost feet of the tower by first removing its east and west walls and then taking the brick veneer off its north and south edifices, removing parapets, and then installing a new concrete block support onto the 166-foot-tall structure.

Photo: Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation

The brick veneer was later re-installed in addition to locally quarr...

Marlon Blackwell to design new air traffic control tower for Columbus Municipal Airport in Indiana

2023-12-19T14:09:00-05:00

Marlon Blackwell Architects has announced it will be designing a new air traffic control tower at the Columbus Municipal Airport in Columbus, Indiana. The $11.5 million project helps the airport modernize its facilities in line with current Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control Tower design and safety standards.

Plans call for a 100-foot design to replace an aged-out 80-foot tower with help from a team that includes Woolpert (aviation design), Guy Nordenson (structural design), Thornton Tomasetti (façade design), and Threshold Acoustics (acoustic consulting). The project is being supported, in part, by a grant from the Cummins Architecture Foundation.

Marlon Blackwell was selected over other shortlisted finalists from Snow Kreilich Architects, SO – IL, and Höweler + Yoon.

“We are so honored to have been selected to contribute to the architectural legacy of Columbus,” Blackwell sa...

Exhibit Columbus Announces 2023 Opening Weekend Events

2023-08-03T14:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Exhibit Columbus.

The fourth Exhibit Columbus exhibition, Public by Design, opens on Saturday, August 26, with 13 new works of art and architecture designed to invigorate, entertain, and challenge while expanding the legacy of one of America’s most celebrated cities.

Image courtesy of Exhibit Columbus.

Landmark Columbus Foundation announces the Opening Weekend of the 2023 Exhibit Columbus Exhibition, Public by Design, with the Opening Celebration on Friday, August 25, and a day of free, public events on Saturday, August 26. The Exhibit Columbus community (including the Curatorial Team, Landmark Columbus Foundation Staff and Board, Participants, volunteers, and supporters) has been working together for over a year to create what will be a ground-breaking exhibition that showcases how art and architecture can help build a sense of belonging while revitalizing and reimagining historic downtowns as equitable, beautiful, and joyful places.

Image by Hadley F...

LAA Office transforms Columbus, Indiana street into vibrant public art space

2021-11-01T15:22:00-04:00

LAA Office, a Columbus, Indiana-based multi-disciplinary design studio, has unveiled its transformation of a street in downtown Columbus into a new arts district. Called 6th Street Arts Alley, the project was realized in collaboration with the Columbus Area Arts Council.

This project aimed to both establish greater connectivity between establishments and reinvigorate undervalued spaces between buildings along 6th Street, an area that is home to a burgeoning arts and design scene with several community organizations, creative businesses, and studios.

LAA Office introduced 10,000 square feet of street improvements, with the most notable addition being a vibrant, geometric ground mural made alongside student and community volunteers. Another mural on the south façade of the historic Odd Fellows building by artist Nick Abstract was also added. Additionally, a custom collection of modular furniture designed by LAA Office and moveable planters by Anova Furnishings are featured. Together ...

Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Ecosistema Urbano

2021-07-30T12:33:00-04:00

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo of Ecosistema Urbano.

Ecosistema Urbano is a design and consulting company operating within the fields of urbanism, architecture, engineering, and sociology, with offices in Madrid and Miami. Their work often addresses climate head-on, while incorporating strategies of working with micro-climates to educate communities through public spaces. This focus was applied to Cloudroom, their contribution to this year's Exhibit Columbus. Cloudroom consists of an inflatable "cloud," floating over a wooden structure, acting as a space for education, play, and interaction for middle school students.

Listen to “Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Ecosistema Urbano”.

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The 2021 Exhibit Columbus Design Presentations take center stage in an exciting virtual format

2021-03-01T21:35:00-05:00

The highly anticipated Exhibit Columbus 2021 Design Presentations invite the public to experience a virtual and public exhibition. Curated by Architect Iker Gil and critic Mimi Zeiger the third iteration of Exhibit Columbus expands on a theme fit for the current social climate, New Middles.

Archinect, and our sister site Bustler, are the official media sponsors for Exhibit Columbus' Design Presentations this year. Stay tuned for upcoming coverage of the event and participating designers.

"Over the course of four sessions on March 19 and 26, Exhibit Columbus will host the 2021 Design Presentations" explains the Exhibit Columbus team. "The second public event in the 2020-21 cycle of Exhibit Columbus New Middles: From Main Street to Megalopolis, What is the Future of the Middle City? invites the public to preview design concepts of thirteen site-specific, future-oriented public installations and experience the design process first-hand."

Anne Surak, director of Exhibit Columbus, share...

Modernist Columbia, IN building finds new life as architecture school outpost

2018-05-04T13:42:00-04:00

Next fall, Indiana University announced Monday, the building will house the university’s new master of architecture program, serving as an outpost of the flagship Bloomington campus 36 miles to the west. But this will be no ordinary outpost. Columbus, a small-town architectural mecca, boasts buildings by such renowned architects as Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei and Chicago’s Harry Weese.

Blair Kamin tells the story of the former The Republic newspaper building—a modernist gem designed by SOM partner Myron Goldsmith and opened in 1971—which will soon find a second life as Indiana University's new architecture graduate program studio in Columbus, Indiana.

Architecture & Film; A conversation with Kogonada and Kyle Bergman

2017-08-31T17:58:00-04:00

On this week's show we talk to Kogonada, the writer and director of the critically-acclaimed film Columbus, and Kyle Bergman, founder of the Architecture & Design Film Festival.

Left: Kogonada, Photo by Kyle Flubacker; Right: Kyle Bergman

Our conversation with Kogonada touches on his inspirations and video-essay work prior to this spectacular debut feature-length film (currently 98% on Rotten Tomatoes!), his experience growing up in a midwest immigrant household and his passion for bringing architecture to film.

Kyle Bergman, who is also a practicing architect, shares his backstory behind the Architecture & Design Film Festival, and tells us about some of the very exciting new films that will be screening at the upcoming festivals in Whitefish, Montana in September and NYC in November.

Listen to "Architecture & Film":

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The designer that Columbus, a film featuring numerous Modernist icons, forgot about

2017-08-25T16:11:00-04:00

The Miller House and Garden, now owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, is acknowledged as one of the greatest Modernist collaborations. This thirteen-acre property was developed between 1953 and 1957 as a unified design through the close teamwork of Kiley, architects Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche, interior designer Alexander Girard (who is acknowledged in the film), and clients J. Irwin and Xenia Miller.

The recent film Columbus is centered around a love story of a son of a renowned architecture critic stuck in a small Midwestern town and a 'young architecture enthusiast' who works at the local library. Taking place in mid-century Modernism mecca, Columbus, IN, the motion picture spares plenty of spectacular views of iconic Modernist sites: the Miller House, North Christian Church (1964), Cummins Inc. Irwin Office Building (1954), First Christian Church (1942), and Columbus Regional Hospital Mental Health Center (1972). The characters, surprisingly, do not fail to acknowledge the architects at each location—there are mentions of Eero and Eliel Saarinen, James Polshek... However, Dan Kiley, whose landscapes are often the movie's pivotal settings, got left out and never once credited.

Kiley designed more projects in Columbus than any architect—over thirty landscapes which among many others include the Art Institute of Chicago, South Garden (1962), Jefferson National Expansion Expansio...

One-to-One #41 with Deborah Berke

2016-10-10T14:58:00-04:00

The small town of Columbus, Indiana is packed with the works of famous modernist architects, but unlike cities like New York or Chicago, Columbus’s pedigree isn’t so often brought into the national architectural discourse. Exhibit Columbus, a new symposium and exhibition happening annually in the city, is hoping to change that.

Deborah Berke, architect and dean at Yale, has worked extensively in Indiana and was a keynote speaker at this year's inaugural Exhibit Columbus symposium. She joined me on the podcast to reflect on the local and regional influences of Columbus, Indiana, and the impact they've had on her career.

Listen to One-to-One #41 with Deborah Berke:

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No Sage on Stage: 'Exhibit Columbus' shines loving light on Indiana's architectural hotspot, on Archinect Sessions #83

2016-09-29T17:15:00-04:00

Beginning today through October 1, Columbus, Indiana will celebrate its architectural history and identity with its very first Exhibit Columbus—an annual event alternating between a symposium and a design exhibition. Known for its rich architectural holdings of work by Eero and Eliel Saarinen, Kevin Roche, I.M. Pei, Deborah Berke, Richard Meier, Robert Venturi and others, Columbus has earned its "Athens of the prairie" tagline, and Exhibit Columbus hopes to honor that proud tradition into the future.

We're joined by key members of Exhibit Columbus, Richard McCoy (director of the symposium's parent company, Landmark Columbus) and Joshua Coggeshall (partner at Shimizu + Coggeshall and co-director of next year's Ball State University installations) to discuss the city's architectural heritage, and what's planned for this year's inaugural symposium.

Listen to episode 83 of Archinect Sessions, "No Sage on Stage":

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An Unlikely Architecture Hub

2013-05-20T12:35:00-04:00

the Visitors Center lists some 70 structures as “noteworthy”), many designed by a litany of important American architects: I. M. Pei, Harry Weese, Robert A. M. Stern, Richard Meier, Kevin Roche, Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli and others...

Recently Nancy Kriplen wrote about a visit to Columbus, Ind, for the NYT Sunday travel section. The city was "ranked sixth among the nation’s cities in 1991 for its architectural innovation and design by the American Institute of Architects".

Columbus, Ind.: A Midwestern Mecca Of Architecture

2012-08-06T14:21:00-04:00

Columbus, Ind., looks like any other small town, with its small shops and restaurants. But what sets this town apart is its architecture.