Columbus, In Weekend Trip

The weekend of the 27th I was given a wonderful suprise by my girlfriend. She had asked me to take both Friday and Monday off the weekend of the 27th of August, and so I did. She said she had a suprise for me but kept the secret from me until the week we left. To my suprise she had planned for us to take a trip to the town of Columbus, In.

You maybe asking yourself, Columbus, In.? what the heck is in columbus, In.?" Well check out this website to get a full understanding and history of the town.

What you should know is that Columbus has been named, by several "sources", the 6th overal city for significant architecture in America (only behind New York, Boston, Chicago, D.C. , and San Fransisco). what is impressive is the town has a population of less than 40,00 people.

I really wasn't sure what to expect from the city and its architecture, but I pleasantly enjoyed the experience of seeing it's architecture and what well designed buildings can do and mean for a city, regardless of its size. Many of the buildings were a bit "dated" modern designs, but many of them still were well done and in no way were "icons" of themselves or the architects that designed them. There was a responsiveness to context and scale that made the architecture work very well. To some extent some of the buildings could have even been a bit more articulate and expressive in there form and presence.

What did bother me about some of the architecture was the lack of care some of the buildings seemed to have. Several of the schools really needed a pressure-washing and some fresh paint to make them shine again (Clifty Creek, by Meier, and the Fodrea Comm School, by Rowlett Scott to to name two). This seemed to strike me as sad and this even jumped out at my girlfriend who doesn't normally notice buildings the way I do.

The people of the town are very friendly and most seemed to really take pride in the heritage they were apart of and lived in. We even got to stay in a "bed & breakfast" that was an old victorian/plantation converted style house built in the 1800's. Did I mentioned we got to use the first working inside bathroom in the State of Indiana? the hosts were a wonderful and the experience was one that I will try again.

And just to drop a few of the names of architects that have worked in Columbus...
Richard Meier, Robert Ventrui, I.M. Pei, Kevin Roche, the Saarinens (Eliel & Eero), Gunner Burkerts, Cesar Pelli, SOM, and others...

Photos shown (from top): City Hall by SOM, Irwin Union Bank & Trust Main Office by Eero Saarinen, & First Christain Church by Eliel Saarinen.