Untapped – Modernist Town, U.S.A.
Columbus—the one in southern Indiana, not its larger counterpart in central Ohio—is the poster child for American Modernism beyond the big cities. Its population of 51,000 could just about fit in Yankee Stadium, and the nearest international airport is in Indianapolis, more than 50 miles away. Bisected by the east fork of the White River, the seat of semirural Bartholomew County is an old-fashioned American town like they hardly make ’em anymore, complete with the Lions Club, the Rotarians, a 4-H chapter, and an annual Scottish Festival, taking place in September on the fairgrounds just next to Southside Elementary.
More recently, however, the town has come to recognize its architectural heritage as a major asset, celebrated annually with Exhibit Columbus, a summertime exhibition-cum-open house that puts the community’s built environment front and center. Seen as an extension of that booster-ish endeavor, American Modern is a terrific handbook, and the photographic portfolios—shot by the formidable Iwan Baan—that bookend the lengthy essayistic passages place an emphasis on the everyday-ness of the featured buildings, showing them in the course of their quotidian operations.