





































Authors
GEORGE TOWERS 
Head, Division of Liberal 
Arts, Professor of Geogra-
phy, Indiana University Pur-
due University Columbus

RICHARD MCCOY  
Founding Director, Land-
mark Columbus

Columbus, Indiana is known for its 
modern architecture and for foster-
ing a vibrant spirit of community. 
This summer, Columbus Conver-
sations, a new series of local public 
forums, provided an opportunity for 
residents to help articulate the archi-
tecture of their community’s dis-
tinctive identity. Columbus Conver-
sations grew out of the partnership 
between Indiana University - Purdue 
University Columbus (IUPUC) and 
Columbus’ nationally-renowned 
facility for older adults, the Mill Race 
Center (MRC). Every spring, IUPUC 
and the MRC organize the Great 
Decisions foreign policy discussions 
for the Columbus community and, 
every spring, participants ask to 
keep their conversations going into 
the summer and fall. Their enthu-
siasm led IUPUC and the MRC to 
envision Columbus Conversations. 
The Indiana University Council for 
Regional Engagement and Economic 
Development championed the idea 
with an Innovate Indiana grant.  

Columbus Conversations topics 
resonate with local relevance. 
For example, IUPUC faculty have 
shared their community-serving 
scholarly work on women immi-
grants’ experience in Columbus; 
the local dimensions of the opioid 
epidemic; and, identifying Autism 
Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through 
brain science. On behalf of the MRC, 
Executive Director Dan Mustard 
led a timely discussion on the state 
of senior services in Indiana. The 
series concluded by celebrating the 
25th anniversary of IUPUC’s student 
literary magazine, Talking Leaves, 
with prose and poetry readings by 
current and former students.  

Columbus Conversations also host-
ed a dialogue with Richard McCoy, 
the Founding Director of Landmark 
Columbus Foundation. Established 
in 2015 with support from the 
Heritage Fund - The Community 
Foundation of Bartholomew County, 
Landmark Columbus Foundation is 
dedicated to furthering the vision 

GEORGE TOWERS AND RICHARD MCCOY 

Columbus Conversations 
and Exhibition 
Conversations 

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of J. Irwin Miller, Columbus’ legendary leading 
citizen. Miller, who transformed Columbus-based 
Cummins Diesel from an unprofitable business 
into a Fortune 500 company, dedicated a portion 
of his philanthropy to making Columbus the best 
community of its size in the country. He and his 
wife Xenia understood that the settings for public 
interaction – schools, main streets, churches, and 
parks – model our expectations and aspirations 
for community life. Therefore, they commis-
sioned thoughtful architect, landscape architects, 
and artists to evoke a modern spirit of progres-

sivism. In that tradition, Landmark Columbus 
extends architecture’s visible expression into a 
vision of community, preserving the vitality of 
the architectural masterpieces that have made 
Columbus famous. 

Richard shared this mission with Columbus Con-
versations through a preview of this year’s Exhibit 
Columbus, his organization’s annual exploration 
of architecture, art, and design. In even-numbered 
years, Exhibit Columbus is a symposium that 
attracts thought leaders from around the world 

Love Letter to The Crump by Borderless Studio for Exhibit Columbus. Photo credit: Andrew Towers

P R O F I L E S  O F  E N G A G E M E N T

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to reflect upon the town’s unique relationship be-
tween architecture and community. In odd-num-
bered years, the Exhibit takes physical form. Last 
year, teams from design studios, university archi-
tecture programs, and local high schools interwove 
18 projects amongst downtown’s modernist monu-
ments. The installations were part of the commu-
nity’s fabric through December 1.   

For Columbus Conversations, Richard related the 
installations to the theme, “Good Design and the 
Community,” the title of the National Building 
Museum’s 1986 exhibition in Miller’s honor. Each 
project is a collaborative accomplishment rooted 
in conversation. For example, Playscape, devel-
oped by Associate Professor Sean Ahlquist and his 
colleagues in the University of Michigan’s Taub-
man College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 
is designed to engage those with ASD. Informed by 
inter-disciplinary research and the involvement of 
the ASD community, the Ahlquist’s team combined 
textured surfaces and lighting in a self-contained 
space that redirects the isolating hyper-awareness 
associated with ASD towards collaboration. Locat-
ed immediately outside the entrance to The Com-
mons, an indoor public park that floods the senses 
with the sights and sounds of Jean Tinguely’s giant 
Rube Goldberg machine / sculpture Chaos I and 
a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk-esque kids climber de-
signed by Spencer Luckey, Playscape invites playful 
communication between those with ASD and peo-
ple who are not on the autism spectrum.  

The designers’ commitment to reaching out to the 
community is reciprocated by residents sharing 
their ideas. A wonderful example is provided by 
Borderless Studio’s Love Letter to The Crump, 
which is connected to The Crump Theater, an 
1889 opera house that remains unrestored, un-
used, and endangered. A beloved local landmark, 
the Crump’s state of disrepair is much lamented 
in Columbus. Paola Aguirre Serrano and her asso-
ciates at Borderless Studio engaged the issues of 
remembrance and place by holding workshops to 

collect residents’ memories of and hopes for The 
Crump. They then represented these community 
sentiments with a pattern of graphic designs that 
repeats to fill an enormous curtain. Staged against 
The Crump’s large exterior wall facing incoming 
downtown traffic, the Love Letter declares that 
through the will of the community, the curtain will 
be pulled back and the show will go on. There are 
sixteen other installations to explore in the exhibi-
tion, and two exhibition guides, one that is geared 
towards families, and a mobile app that will allow 
users to explore the theme of this year’s exhibi-
tion. The exhibition and the guides are provided 
free to everyone thanks to the generosity of many 
in Columbus and beyond.   

Columbus Conversations is intended as an educa-
tional service for the community. The philosophi-
cal vision and the physical articulation of Exhibit 
Columbus remind us that conversations are also 
mutually instructive. As Exhibit Columbus is 
a dialogue that re-envisions and re-constructs 
Columbus’ identity through architecture, we hope 
that Columbus Conversations can contribute to 
continuing the city’s commitment to civic-minded 
collaboration for the benefit of the community.  

Love Letter to The Crump by Borderless Studio for  
Exhibit Columbus. Photo credit: Andrew Towers

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