A Very Brutal Xmas

Michael Webster

15 Jan 2026 • 4 min read

Spire of the North Christian Church by Eero Saarinen

I made a second trip to Columbus over the holidays. A town of roughly 50,000 in central Indiana, Columbus is an important destination for modern architecture, much of it Brutalist. Over 70 buildings are considered architecturally significant.

To cantilevered brick walls at the entrance of Columbus City Hall

Knowing how much I like visiting botanic gardens, my daughter Chloe sent me an article about what the author thought was one of the best gardens in the United States. Shockingly, it was in Columbus. I filed that under "that's weird" and I'll have to visit if I'm ever up that way and forgot about it.

Inside the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library by I.M. Pei

Across the street from the library and Henry Moore sculpture. - First Christian Church designed by Eliel Saarinen

A couple months after Chloe sent me the article about the Miller Garden, The New Yorker published a re-appraisal of the film "Columbus." It's an excellent film in which the architecture plays a major role. If you want to see beautiful pictures of many of the major works there, watch the film. You'll thank me later.

In November, my wife and I made a trip up to Brown County to see the fall foliage and do some shopping in Nashville (IN). After leaving the state park I noticed a sign that said "Columbus 12," so what the hell, we headed over that way. It was Sunday and everything was closed, but we walked around and saw many of these buildings, and some others. Chloe was in town over Xmas and we made the trip up there and I took these photos. Hopefully I'll get back to Columbus someday and see more.

In addition to the architecture, there are quite a few art installations in Columbus.

This was my favorite, though I'm not 100 percent sure it's actually an art installation. I visited twice over about six weeks and those same nearly identical Dodge trucks were parked in the same spots, so I think it is, though I suppose it could be some kind of advertising for a local car dealership. Inadvertent or not, I think it's great.

That's not the North Christian Church anymore. The congregation dwindled over the years and was falling into disrepair so it was gifted to the Library. It's now the LEX, The Library or Experience, which uses it for "a dynamic space for learning, connection, and inspiration," whatever that means. I'll get up there again someday when it's open and find out. Of all the pictures I've seen of architecture in Columbus, the interior of the church is by far the most awe inspiring. I hope it's still there and can be seen.

All of this architecture was made possible by an old school American Industrialist, J. Irwin Miller. The Miller House and Garden was the subject of the text Chloe sent alerting me to the existence of Columbus as a destination for modern architecture.

A sad aside to all this is how far the billionaire class has fallen since Miller's days. Back then the Carnegies, Rockerfellers, Morgans, and the like funded public libraries, supported higher education, health initiatives, museums and significant public artworks as they otherwise laid waste to the environment and committed other crimes against humanity. Whereas nowadays wankers like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel waste their billions laying waste and committing crimes against humanity without doing anything whatsoever to make the world a better place. Quite the opposite.

This is the Evansville riverfront on a recent foggy morning. I very much doubt it was meant to be brutalist architecture, or at least not sold that way, but it seems to at least have resonances. I'll be blowing this town shortly, so you can expect something completely different the next time one of these things lands in your inbox.