Houses often serve as design laboratories for architects – an opportunity to try ideas with a small size before they are used on a larger, public scale. It is much easier to convince a single person or a couple to try an idea than to sell a company board or a public agency via the same concept. Unfortunately, these experiments are usually private and remain inaccessible to the public.
The Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, designed by Eero Saarinen, is an exception. It was donated by his owners J. Irwin and Xenia Miller to the Indianapolis art museum after their death. The Miller House is easy to overlook when you visit Columbus – it is not directly in the city center and requires a reservation for a tour. But don't miss it. It is a challenging architecture that can delight, surprise and confuse.
Finnish American Saarine Philitella forms defined the modern moment from the middle of the century. The architect based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan was one of the 20TH The most talented designers of the century. He tragically died of a brain tumor in 1961 when he was taking his step at the age of 51. Midwest probably know his gateway arch in St. Louis. It also celebrated for unforgettable designs that include the New York Twa terminal, which is now repeated as a hotel from the topic in the middle of the century, and the Bell Labs in New Jersey, which can be seen on Apple TVs “Severance”. Saarinen's only remaining design in Chicago is the legal faculty of the University of Chicago (the university has torn down a much unloved dormitory from Saarinen to clarify land for the business school in 2001).
The house was designed for Miller and his family. Miller was unique to create his hometown as an architectural Mecca. As head of the Cummins Corp. And Miller used the Irwin Union Bank to keep his fellow citizens and develop his fellow citizens to support a good design with an outstanding list of leading architects.
The Miller House was completed in 1957 and is a remarkable cooperation between Saarinen, the landscape architect Dan Kiley and the interior designer Alexander Girard. Saarinen's Design Associate was Kevin Roche, who would become the successor to the boss after his early death. Roche finally won the Pritzker Prize in 1982 and created a large number of works to which the Leo Burnett building in Chicago in Dearborn Street and on the Wacker Drive. This design Dream team has the challenge: I claim that the architecture of the house is the least interesting part of the project, whereby landscape and interiors have priority.
The organization of the one-story structure is simple: 16 x-shaped steel columns support a flat roof with wide overhangs that extend from the outer wall to protect the interiors with sunscay. The structural network is due to continuous 30-inch overall lights that provide indirect light in the entire house-a design movement that provides for the similar detail of Roches in the Cummins Corporate Office Building decades later. The ceiling light sources divide the house into nine rectangles.
While modern houses generally emphasize the lightness, the Miller House is quite heavy. This is confusing, even bizarre, since the actual structure is fairly light (the X pillars are only 8 inches wide), but the roof is so heavy and measures 33 inches in the outside of the house. Overall, it feels heavy and excessively protected. It is reminiscent of HH Richardson's Glessner House, whose heavy stone walls in the 1880s should protect Chicago from potential striking workers from potential residents. But while Richardson Stein made stone as heavy and protective and at the same time transformed into a wonderful architecture on the south side, the bourgeois millers needed Columbus in the middle of the century in the middle of the century.
They enter from a car dish on the west side of the house, next to a covered carport. The small entry leads to the central living room, which acts as a central square with private rooms on every corner of the structure. The dining area and a television room are located directly from the living room and offer a view to the north and south. The children's suite is located in the southwest, the main suite in the northwest, the kitchen in the northeast and in the southeast of the guest and the maid.
The extensive living room is interrupted by a conversation pit, a girard idea that does pioneering work in this house and looks west in a large field. The interior design also designed a 50 -foot exhibition wall, which contains the family's books and varied objects along the west side of the living room. Girard's contributions give the color and mood, two characteristics that can be defective in a city that often seems to have been driven by a certain taste of the Hoosier protestantism. Girard's designs are filled with personalized notes that reflect the millers and their interests. The colorful carpet in the television area contains dozens of symbols associated with every family member.
Outside, Kiley developed the landscape over the 13.5 hectare site as a series of outdoor spaces that extend the house. A large lawn falls west, where he culminates in a forested area on the bank of the Flatrock River.
The success of the interiors and landscape enables you to overlook the strange details of even greater things against the thoughtful and lively contributions of its employees.
Another employee was Miller's wife Xenia, who occupied the house until her death in 2008. At that time, the house was appointed a national historical landmark. Today the Miller House is owned and is operated by Newfields in Indianapolis (when the Indianapolis Museum of Art was renamed 2017). It is located in a quiet residential area about one and a half miles north of Columbus' inner city. Guided tours go from Columbus Visitors Center via shuttle bus because there are no parking spaces on the site. The tours cost 30 US dollars per person and last about 90 minutes.
Other Saarinen stations in the city are the North Christian Church and the Irwin Union Bank and Trust (now a conference center). He also worked with his father Eliel Saarinen in the first Christian church, probably the best architecture work in a city full of significant buildings.
Edward Keegan writes, sends and teaches about architectural subjects. Keegan's two-week architecture column is supported by a subsidy by the former tribune critic Blair Kamin, which is managed by the non-profit journalism financing partners. The tribune maintains editorial control over tasks and content.
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