a detail on the outside of the Cummins office building Columbus has a marketing line: "different by design", and if any of you have ever visited the small city in south central Indiana......you'd have to recognize something is different there. Columbus is ranked 6th in the nation for "architectural innovation and design" by the American Institute of Architects on a list that includes Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.. So how did this little bastion of architectural significance come to be?
The patron of architecture, like the Medicis of old, the Cummins Engine Foundation, offers to pay the architect's fee for a variety of public buildings such as schools, churches, etc. designed by an architect selected from a list supplied by the Foundation. World-known architects like Eero Saarinen, Harry Weese, Richard Meier, and I.M. Pei have left an impressive mark on the small city. I highly recommend a visit to Columbus. I'd recommend a summer visit though, so that you can walk the streets and parks and allow yourself to enjoy all of the public sculpture and architecture the city has to offer.
I like this statement from Columbus' web site: "No one will call a community "good," unless it looks like a "good" community. By American tradition, a good city must be defined as one which provides the "good things" for all its residents -- schools, parks, churches, civic buildings, programs that meet community needs, and events that entertain. There is a commitment in Columbus to save the best of the old and build for the future in a quality way that everyone will consider worth saving. " Would that all cities and towns take even the smallest hint from Columbus on how to "do" public art and architecture right-Indiana would be a remarkable place.
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