Submitted photo Globally known photographer Iwan Baan shot images for “American Modern: Architecture, Community, Columbus Indiana.”
Call it a spire of what a city aspires to.
The pointed top of the former North Christian Church building reaches skyward in a community that has arguably stretched sky-high architecturally.
The celebrated structure, among the seven local National Historic Landmarks, comes into focus in author Matt Shaw’s near-opening lines of a comprehensive, 472-page, soon-to-be-released coffee table volume “American Modern: Architecture, Community, Columbus Indiana.” He describes a motorist driving south on U.S. 31 while entering entering the city limits.
“Above the trees appeared a slender spire topped with a small cross. As the road gently curved, the spire’s needle-like elegance was revealed as the pinnacle of a hexagonal startlingly modern building — Eero Saarinen’s North Christian Church. But the image of Saarinen’s soaring, angular church was just the beginning of this surreal, almost hallucinatory small town.”
Shaw, a Columbus native and 2002 Columbus North High School alumnus, recently discussed the $75 book by phone from his New York City home. He will attend a book launch/release event along with globally known photographer Iwan Baan and designer Alex Lin from 4 to 8 p.m. July 10 in Columbus at the former North Christian building and 4 to 8 p.m. July 11 at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis.
Shaw began his eight months of research in June 2021, followed by about six months and 40,000 words of writing. He did much of that background work at the Bartholomew County Public Library and also through the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller family collection at the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis. Early feedback from limited draft copies of the book has been solid.
“I’ve been getting really good reaction and response all over the country,” Shaw said of the work to be released globally by the prestigious fine arts publisher Monacelli Press. “… Locally, I hope that people can rediscover some of the ideals embedded in Columbus’ architecture, and remember what it’s all about, and help continue the legacy there.
“Also, nationally, I hope it can be something to continue to reestablish Columbus as such an important place, not only in architectural history, but in American history. I think it can really make an impact.”
Shaw, who lectures at three major universities and has written for major mainstream publications such as The New York Times, will speak about the book at a range of events this fall. The 39-year-old architecture graduate of the University of Cincinnati earned a master’s of fine arts in design criticism at the New York-based School of Visual Arts. He is the former executive editor of The Architect’s Newspaper.
“I hope that a lot of people see this book, and that maybe someone can use it as an example of how to build cities better,” Shaw said of Columbus’ different-by-design approach.
Shaw’s writing covers far more than structures. He includes, for example, the Hanson PLC takeover bid of Cummins in the late 1980s and a move by Cummins’ J. Irwin Miller and his family move to thwart such an action.
“This book illustrates the DNA of Columbus as understood through the pragmatic, client-side correspondence of civic leaders and elite management professionals,” Shaw writes.
He readily acknowledged an oversized respect for Miller, and sometimes wonders how the city would be different “if he hadn’t always been so willing to think outside the box.”
Yet, Shaw understands the city from far more than a perspective of elite management. He relished working during part of his high school and college years at the throwback Becker’s Drive-In on 25th Street.
Richard McCoy, founding executive director of the Landmark Columbus Foundation that commissioned the book publication, summarized the overarching goal of the volume — published with 5,000 copies for starters — as succinctly as possible.
“We wanted to produce the definitive book (on Columbus),” he said, praising the work of the book’s trio.
A foundation news release last year heralded the volume as “the first in-depth publication of Columbus, Indiana that demonstrates the unique convergence of civic, industrial, and social forces that produced the preeminent laboratory of architectural Modernism in the country.”
“I was careful to purposely not include any blow-by-blow kind of news,” Shaw said, emphasizing that key elements such as the North Christian structure’s future was still in flux until just recently. “I wanted the book to have a feel that was timeless.”
McCoy, a college journalism major, writes in the foreword partly about the book’s scenery, if you will.
“Baan wants to show Columbus as a living place you can access, a place where you might imagine yourself visiting or living. His images are so true that the people who have spent their lives there would think they just saw the scenes he depicts yesterday.
“He also loves to see the buildings from the air to provide a lens on how the buildings fit into the context of the city and surrounding landscapes … .”
The Wall Street Journal has called Baan “the most wanted photographer in architecture.” He also was named one of the 100 most influential people in contemporary architecture world by the magazine Il Magazine dell’Architettura on occasion of its 100th issue.
Baan, who jetted from Indiana to such far-flung locales as Korea and Spain in between book shoots, hopes readers see the unusual nature of Columbus amid the backdrop of the everyday.
“I was interested to discover an ‘ordinary’ Midwestern city with extraordinary architecture,” Baan said by email. “It’s been incredibly refreshing to see such an industrial town where architecture played a seminal role in all aspects of living, working and recreating, how a bold idea from more than half a century ago still works to make a city livable.
“It was really wonderful to see how these buildings have aged, are used and are a backdrop of everyday life.”
Shaw has retained a sense of humor about his local research that involved various segments of three-week stays at the Columbus home of his parents, David and Suzie Shaw.
“There was a rumor going around that I had moved back in with my parents,” he said with a laugh. “But that time in itself was a very special experience — and to have even an extra reason to come home was really nice.”
Peek inside the book
At landmarkcolumbusfoundation.org/american-modern
