Organizers are expecting about twice as many people to attend the Sept. 26-29 Exhibit Columbus National Symposium: Design, Community, and Progressive Preservation, compared to attendance for the inaugural 2016 event.
Online registration closes at the end of the day Wednesday for this year’s symposium.
Beyond Wednesday, people still can register in person in The Commons, 300 Washington St., in front of Chaos I sculpture for the four-day event highlighting art, architecture and design, said Richard McCoy, director of Landmark Columbus, the umbrella agency for Exhibit Columbus, who is among the founders of Exhibit Columbus.
So far, organizers have recorded slightly more than 500 registrations, compared to about 300 at this point two years ago before the inaugural symposium, McCoy said.
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“We’re definitely exceeding expectations,” McCoy said.
Depending on the kind of registration people choose, general admission ranges from $35 for students to $100 for Bartholomew County residents and $325 for others. The reduced-price $35 and $100 registrations don’t get you into the Sept. 27 opening party at the Upland Columbus Pump House. That’s is $75 extra for those registrations, but covered in the $325 total.
Adding to the attendance, including an estimated 1,000 people total in 2016, are those who attend free presentations, which McCoy expects to be popular again. That includes a closing-day presentation from the five architectural firms chosen as the J. Irwin Miller and Xenia Miller Prize winners for the 2019 exhibition that will highlight a variety of temporary architectural installations.
The second free segment this year is a public party on Washington Street to close the event. Organizers will be promoting these elements by the end of the week, said McCoy, who expects attendance to total 500 to 1,000 for those events.
After the symposium opens at Newfields and the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Sept. 26, the event shifts to Columbus for three days of conversations and events inside the iconic sites that spurred the American Institute of Architects to rank Columbus as sixth nationally for architectural innovation amid the work of some of the world’s top designers.
Presentations include filmmaker Eric Saarinen screening the documentary on his designer-architect father, “Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future”; a discussion of the state of architectural design education; architectural preservation projects, such as the one now underway at North Christian Church; the role historic architecture, art and design can play in making cities more equitable and sustainable, and more.
Besides an estimated 50,000 people who viewed installations at last year’s exhibition, and thousands others who read social media posts, media reports and more about the structures, the city’s architecture got an added boost from the independent film “Columbus” that earned a sizable national audience.
That including a showing even at the National Building Museum in February in Washington, D.C.
The city’s architectural legacy was launched with the design and 1942 opening of the first Modern church of its day, First Christian Church.
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Depending on the kind of registration people choose, the general admission cost ranges from $35 for students to $100 for Bartholomew County residents to $325 for others. The reduced-price $35 and $100 registrations don’t get you into the opening party Sept. 26. That’s is $75 extra for those registrations, but covered in the $325 total.
Information: exhibitcolumbus.org.
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