One really pleasant discovery in Indiana has been Columbus, a small city of less than 46.000 people with a great lust for architecture.
The peculiarity of the city lies indeed in its more than 70 buildings and public art installations created by acknowledged architects, brought to Columbus thanks to a partially public founded construction system.
The First Christian Church was designed by architect Eliel Saarinen. Completed in 1942, it was the first contemporary building in Columbus and one of the first churches of contemporary architecture in the United States.
Observing churches in Columbus could take you the whole day, as they have such particular and different styles that make them stand out from the surroundings and were born from a distinctive idea of the architect who realized them.
This is St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, designed by Gunnar Birkerts and built in 1988.
I must admit that even though I found really interesting the contrast given from the architect reflecting his vision of nature, I had some troubles with appreciating this building. Being Italian, I think that my taste in "churches" is influenced a little bit (too much) from Romanic and gothic styles to really get used to see such a disharmonious and bare building.
In fact I totally fell in love with the outdoor of The inn at Irwin Gardens, with its polished style that brought to my mind dreams about afternoons spent drinking ice tea and reading in this magical place.
Apart from the gardens, one of the big highlights of the day was the train.
Trains in the US are not common at all, they barely connect some big cities for passengers, but some railways are still used for cargo carriage. Moreover, in Europe trains do not pass often in the middle of the street anymore, so catching this one crossing the city (and going possibly at 10 Km/h) was quite a surprise!
Anyway, moral of the story: if you find yourself in Indiana and with not too many ideas of what to do, Columbus would be a worth stop to do. The downtown is also really pretty to walk through, especially on a sunny day like the one we had.
Art is all around, and it is really interesting to walk spotting sculptures, each one with its own styles, story and meaning.
