Midcentury Modern + Preservation

Duncan Campbell, chair of Ball State University's associate professor of architecture and director of the graduate program in historic preservation, has been invited to give a presentation for Bloomington's Preservation Commission's inaugural Rosemary P. Miller Lecture on Historic Preservation, taking place this Friday, March 4th. Campell will be speaking on designer Elaine Doenges' midcentury modern houses built in Bloomington, Indiana.

Campbell's talk will be Friday, March 4th at 7 pm in Bloomington's City Hall. For more information, visit the Preservation Commission's website.

Bush Stadium

Bush Stadium, originally called Perry Stadium when it was built by the architectural firm Pierre & Wright, photographed during its construction in the 1930s. Below the photograph is an article from Copper & Brass Bulletin describing the massive lead-coated copper marquee above the entrance to the stadium. Both are from the Fran E. Schroeder Architectural Records Collection.

Images: Bush Stadium Construction Photograph, 34-188, Fran E. Schroeder Architectural Records Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Lead-coated Copper marquee protects entrance to new sports stadium at Indianapolis, 34-188, Fran E. Schroeder Architectural Records Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Architects + Photographers

For anyone who doubts the power of photography to interpret architecture, I offer two examples. The first is our Trowbridge and Beals Photograph Collection, which showcases the work of two outstanding early 20th century architectural photographers and is now available online in Ball State University Libraries' Digital Media Repository.

Raymond W. Trowbridge (1886-1936) and Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870-1942) came to photography from different careers--he was an architect and she was a teacher--but both became well known in this burgeoning field.

The second example?

The film Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman.

Eliel Saarinen in Indianapolis

Eliel Saarinen, architect of the First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana, among other extraordinary Modernist buildings, is shown here judging a competition at the 1928 Indiana Society of Architects show, which took place at the John Herron Art Institute.

On the walls are architects Pierre & Wright's prize-winning display showing Oxford Gables Apartments and other commissions. Pierre & Wright won honorary gold certificates for best apartment building (Oxford Gables, 320 E. 38th Street) and best commercial building (27th and Meridian Streets).

At the time he received the award, Edward Pierre and his wife Louise lived in the Oxford Gables apartment building, in #207. Not only did he design and live in the building, but along with Wright they invested in the $287,800 project. It was one of the only documented times where the firm financially invested in a project they designed.

Also of note, the architectural firm of Johnson, Miller, Miller & Yeager from Terre Haute, whose collection we also have in the Drawings + Documents Archive, won honorary gold certificate for their design of the B'nai Abraham Temple in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The photograph of Saarinen and an article about the show that most likely appeared in the Indianapolis Star are found tucked into the scrapbook in the Pierre and Wright Architectural Records Collection that dates from the 1920s. The collection also contains some of the large-scale photographs seen in the picture.

Image: Scrapbook, Pierre & Wright Architectural Records Collection, Ball State University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, Drawings and Documents Archive.