Sunday, March 02, 2014

"Panoramic Views Of Columbus, Indiana's Modernist Landmarks."


Granted, we have no Cummins. What we have had is a wave of 1960s-era demolitions, leaving us with outmoded corporate relics (bank where the courthouse was), too many (and still expanding) holes in the urban streetscape, never enough infill (and plans to anchor corners we shouldn't), often overcompensating historic preservationists ... then, to top it off, we send Maalox to Columbus to bring our way of non-thinking to them, even as Doug England wanders through town brandishing a business card touting his consultancy in entrepreneurial matters he did virtually nothing to assist as mayor.

Hello Central: Give me John Galt. We need to stop the wheels of this atrocity and board a different bus.

Panoramic Views Of Columbus, Indiana's Modernist Landmarks, by Anthony Paletta (Metropolis)

... If the idea of physically investing in the well-being of a small town seems quaint, so often is its representative architecture. Consider Hershey, PA, which boasts a fine art deco windowless office building but otherwise derives its inspirations from the age of the soda fountain. Or Corning, New York; it contains a Gunnar Birkerts glass museum, and yet looks like it hasn’t taken much advantage of the possibilities of its signature product. Which makes one example, Columbus, Indiana—a town that doesn’t merely nod to Prairie Modernism but is defined by it—all the more exceptional.

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