Miller House

Kirk and I went on a guided tour to see the recently opened Miller House and Garden located in Columbus, Indiana which is an architecturally significant city about 37 miles east of Bloomington.  The house was commissioned in 1953 by J. Irwin Miller, past CEO of the Cummins Engine Co., the largest industry in the Columbus area.  He was a great patron of modern architecture and single-handedly put Columbus, IN, on the world map by bringing in renowned architects, such as Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Richard Meier, and the like, to this small town, which in a span of 60 or so years erected some pretty spectacular public buildings there.  I wrote up a piece about the Miller House to contribute to a website devoted to disseminating information about modern buildings around the world.  Will let you know if it is accepted.

On the way to Columbus, we stopped by another small town, with a misleading name, Nashville.  Though it may not be as well-known as its namesake in Tennessee, it is home to a colony of artists and craftsmen, operating quaint little shops that offer traditional home-decorating items and gifts to weekend tourists, and the atmosphere there reminds me somewhat of High Springs, near Gainesville, in north central Florida.  We found several signs for these shops made by the same graphic artist, Gary Anderson, who designed our Wisteria House sign; you can probably see some similarities of style in these signs.