Browse Exhibits (2 total)
Anchor, Move, Connect: Henry Moore's "Large Arch"
Henry Moore's "Large Arch" stands on the broad plaza of I.M. Pei's Cleo Rogers Memorial Library in downtown Columbus, Indiana. Across the street is Eliel Saarinen's First Christian Church, a National Historic Landmark.
The monumental bronze sculpture serves as the plaza’s visual anchor for the surrounding buildings. And yet the sculpture invites us to move under and around it; to allow our eyes to move over its surface to the buildings beyond.
As a gathering place, the library plaza connects local residents with one another and with people and places around the world.
Pei and Moore's Columbus project, realized in 1971, was the first time they collaborated to create a sculpture for a Pei building, but it would not be their last. Their other projects include "Three Forms Vertebrae" (1978) for Dallas City Hall in Dallas, Texas; "Mirror Knife Edge" (1977) for the National Gallery of Art, East Building in Washington, DC; and "Large Reclining Figure" (1984) for Overseas Chinese Banking in Singapore.
Other bronze casts of Moore's "The Arch" (the official title of "Large Arch") can be found at Moore's former home in Perry Green, England, at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan, and the Henie Onstad Art Center in Norway.
301 Washington Street: Cornerstone of Columbus, Indiana
On the northeast corner of Third and Washington streets in downtown Columbus, Indiana, stands a late nineteenth century brick building with limestone lintels, cast iron columns, and an iron cornice emblazoned with "IRWIN'S BANK 1881." A brushed brass box with smoked glass penetrates the porch's glass-tiled wall and serves as the Washington Street entrance. Locally the building is known simply as "301" for its street number.
The building at 301 Washington Street — more than any other in Columbus — tells the story of the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller family. While many families have contributed to shaping Columbus over the last two hundred years, the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller family holds a unique position for its involvement in business, religion, politics, art, and philanthropy locally, nationally, and internationally.
This digital exhibit, by highlighting materials from the Bartholomew County Public Library, the Columbus Indiana Architectural Archives, and the Bartholomew County Historical Society, explores four generations of the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller family, the businesses located at 301 Washington Street, and the building's design history over nearly 100 years.