Glass House Presents: Learning from Columbus in New Canaan

Columbus, Indiana—home to modernist landmarks by Eero Saarinen, Eliot Noyes, I.M. Pei, and other luminaries—is one of the most architecturally significant small cities in the world, and a model for other modernist communities like New Canaan to consider. Learn how for seventy years, Columbus has proved that design excellence is not a matter of taste, but a civic discipline.  

Modern architecture preservation now needs more than admiration: shared methods, honest accounting, and real evidence of what it takes to sustain good decisions across generations. Richard McCoy, founding Executive Director of Landmark Columbus Foundation, draws on work in progressive preservation, public design, and civic memory to show how one small city built the conditions that most communities are still trying to name. 

Richard McCoy is the founding Executive Director of Landmark Columbus Foundation, a non-profit organization that demonstrates what design excellence can mean to a community. The organization features three programming arms: Progressive Preservation, Exhibit Columbus, and the Civic Design Office. McCoy has a long history of creating unique solutions to complex cultural heritage challenges and occasionally teaches and writes about the arts. He has worked as a conservator-restorer for museums and libraries specializing in contemporary art, sculptures, traveling exhibitions, and bookbinding. He has degrees from New York University and Indiana University. 

Glass House Presents is an ongoing series of talks, performances, and other live events that extend the site’s historic role as a gathering place for artists, architects, and other creative minds. This event is supported in part by the New Canaan Community Foundation. 

Images: 

Irwin Conference Center (1954), Eero Saarinen 

Richard McCoy, photo by Tony Vasquez