Pei, Eero Saarinen and others, Columbus has been named the sixth most architecturally important city in the United States. Irwin Miller wanted to bring a modern church to his hometown of Columbus, Indiana, it was mainly his family that needed to be convinced. The architecture of Columbus, Indiana, has turned the city into an unlikely modernist mecca and is being used as the setting for a new feature film. We've put together 11 of the best examples, including an Eero Saarinen house, a Robert Venturi fire station, and an IM Pei library.
How did a city of 46,000 inhabitants come to be known as the mecca of modernist architecture? Much of this reputation is due to industrialist Joseph Irwin Miller, the former director of Cummins Engine Company, based in Columbus. Miller commissioned extraordinary buildings in the hope of attracting more talent to the region. This is how Columbus's buildings, from banks to schools, became fascinating examples of American architectural history, in a city that continues to carry the torch of modernist design today.
