First Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana

Columbus, IN is the fifth most important site in the United States for architecture, and it all started with this congregation hiring Eliel Saarinen to design the first truly modern church building in the U.S.



Those of us on this architectural tour were very disappointed to see banners hanging in the sanctuary, and the altar removed to make room for a drum set and speakers. Stickers were on the windows. Why do worship committees and musicians think interior visual spaces don't matter?

First Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana
Columbus, Indiana
Church architecture

2795 FLW Tour: Dayton Medical Clinic

After Springfield and Sidney on our Frank Lloyd Wright July tour, it was on to Dayton, Oh to visit a FLW medical bulding, which although nearly 50 years old, still works surprisingly well.







In the guide book this is called the Meyers Medical Clinic, but is now the home office of James Apesos, MD, a plastic surgeon.

After Dayton it was a beautiful drive through lush Indiana farmland to Columbus, Indiana. The previous Friday we had been at the Finland summer home of Eliel and Eero Saarinen, and now we were in Columbus, IN where Eliel designed perhaps the first modern American church.

We checked in at our B & B (the former city hall, converted in the mid-1980s) designed by another well-known architect, Charles F. Sparrel, who did many Columbus buildings in the 1800s, and walked to our restaurant. It was a very busy day!

Other entries about this tour here, here, here, and here.

Frank Lloyd Wright
Dayton, Ohio
Columbus, Indiana

2769 FLW Tour: War Memorial Columbus, IN

When I first saw this war memorial on the lawn of the county courthouse in Columbus, IN, I thought it really clashed. However, when you walk up to it and enter it, it really is impressive and sobering. Particularly moving are the letters home in the granite from the soldiers shortly before they died. All wars of the 20th century are represented.

FLW Tour: Sidney, OH Sullivan Bank

Tiny Sidney in Shelby County, Ohio is home to at least two famous buildings and many other lovely sites, Peoples Federal Savings and Loan (est. 1886) and The Spot Restaurant. At the Spot the regulars have name plates on the booths. President Bush ate there during the 2004 campaign. We visited both landmarks on our July architectural tour. Louis Sullivan influenced many 20th century architects, particularly Frank Lloyd Wright and he designed this beautiful bank. Our group loved it. Also, driving through these little Ohio towns, I was very impressed with the diversity of the economy. It was my first visit to Sidney, and it looks like a great town in which to live and put down roots (although, having grown up in a small town, I know that it helps to be born there).

FLW tour group, 2006

We were a melting, but hardy group standing on the deck of the Boulter House in Cincinnati. The heat was oppressive, and the sun brutal. Twenty-six and a half folks talking nothing but architecture for three days. Well, the four year old found other things to talk about. I missed one of the group photos because I'd gone back to the bus to sit in the air conditioning. We are third and fourth from the right in the back in this photo.



Frank Lloyd Wright
Boulter House

2701 FLW Tour: When you visit Springfield, Ohio

Be sure to ask for Kevin for your historical walking tour of High Street. The Springfield Preservation Alliance sponsors walking tours of neighborhoods filled with the wealth of 19th century Ohioans who built large homes along High Street, designed in Neoclassical Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, and Richardsonian Romanesque style. Our Frank Lloyd Wright touring group, on its 16th or 17th summer tour (depends on whom you ask), walked past these lovely homes in various states of repair and renovation to get to the Wescott House. Our tour guide, Kevin Rose, of the Turner Foundation, was outstanding. A booming voice to fight with the traffic, a love of Springfield, and a farm background, makes him ideal for this job of shepherding an architectural tour, or any tour.

The above house is actually not Henry Hobson Richardson designed, but was completed by the same builders who often did his designs. It is on the National Register of Historic Places being completed in 1888 as the personal home for American industrialist and two-term Ohio Governor Asa S. Bushnell. The mansion was designed by architect R. H. Robertson. It is now the Richards, Raff & Dunbar Memorial Home. The staff invited us in, and it is unbelievable inside. Might be worth being buried out of Springfield!


Springfield was a very wealthy town in those heady days, with many farm implement manufacturers located there. In the 20th century it was the home of several automobile factories, including the Wescott, and the Crowell-Collier publishing empire.
The Wescott House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is, of course, well worth the trip, but don't miss the rest of Springfield! Make a day of it.

Westcott House
Frank Lloyd Wright
Springfield, Ohio
historic preservation

2700 Home again, sort of

We're home from a fabulous architectural tour that included Springfield, Sidney, and Dayton, Ohio, then Columbus, Indiana (5th best sige for architure in the USA) and Madison, Indiana (133 blocks of restored river town), then on to Cincinnati and Lebanon, Ohio, then home. We've laundered and repacked, and today it is back to the lake for a week. My husband is teaching an art class this week, and the facility has no AC--so I won't be surprised to see dropouts, and dropovers. Hopefully, he'll get some sailing and I'll get to the coffee shop to write some blogs.

We're off on another trip

We're touring the architectural sites in Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus, IN for several days. I didn't get my Finland stories finished because blogger.com wouldn't cooperate with the photos, but I'll work on that next week. Have a good week-end.

2548 Our Summer Frank Lloyd Wright Tour

We'll be doing another Frank Lloyd Wright tour this summer--this time in Ohio and Indiana. Ohio has some really interesting restorations. This three-day tour includes FLW’s Burton J. Westcott House in Springfield, OH which we've already seen, but is worth going to again. He brought the Westcott Motor Car Company to Springfield (founded by his father in Richmond, IN). The house was completed in 1908 and is in a neighborhood of large Queen Anne, Victorian and Romanesque Revival houses. I'll bet the neighbors weren't thrilled.

We'll also visit the Meyers Medical Center in Dayton, which is now called the Plastic Surgery Pavilion (1956). In Cincinnati we'll see the Cedric G. Boulter house near the Gaslight District, the Gerald B. Tonkens home dating to 1955 in Amberley Village (Usonian) and the William Boswell residence (from 1957, completed in 1961) in Indian Hill, recently renovated. We'll also visit Louis Sullivan’s People’s Federal Savings and Loan Association in Sidney.

Overnight accommodations in Columbus, Indiana, will be at The Columbus Inn, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and formerly Columbus City Hall. I don't know if you've ever been to Columbus, IN, but it is a small city with amazing architecture. We were last there in 1968. The second night will be spent in Historic Madison, Indiana, at the Hillside Inn, nestled in the rolling hills of Southern Indiana and overlooking the majestic Ohio River.

There will also be architectural/historical walking tours in Springfield and Columbus, Indiana, a trolley tour of historic downtown Madison, Indiana, and a tour of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.