Our big summer vacation last year was…Indiana! Columbus, to be exact, for the biannual Exhibit Columbus. This was a hard trip to explain to folks. Basically, Exhibit Columbus is a big public design and placemaking event, set in a city with a long history of amazing public architecture and design.
We had actually been to Columbus years ago, on our way home from our honeymoon in Asheville. We had seen the movie Columbus and it was beautiful. I am always intrigued at how the value for design seeps into culture, and even more so when that culture happens to be the hometown of Mike Pence in a mid-sized city about an hour south of Indianapolis.
So, we decided to go down to Columbus for opening weekend, when all the different artists would be present to talk about their public art installations. Jason and I also spent the toasty summer weekend bopping over to Bloomington, Indiana, to check out what that university town had to offer (spoiler: more great architecture + square donuts), and also just cruising around Columbus, checking out all the mid-century architecture gems on the prairie.
We also spent our last day in Indianapolis. While Minnesota (and Minneapolis) definitely have my heart, it was cool to see how much interesting stuff was going on in Indiana, from great architecture to some really amazing coffee to a lot of public art and good people trying to make their home state better.
Herman B Wells Library at the University of Indiana in Bloomington
Columbus, Indiana City Hall | Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), 1981
