From: Brittain Brewer
Columbus
On my departure from the faculty and community outreach/engagement coordinator at the J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program, I write to celebrate and thank Columbus and its citizens. In coordinating the production and installation of sculptor Olin Levi Warner’s Skidmore Fountain memorial to S.G. Skidmore in Portland, Oregon, in 1888, the attorney C.E.S. Wood had inscribed on its base, “Good citizens are the riches of a city.” As these words were applicable to my former home, Portland, they also apply to Columbus.
Columbus has great architecture because of good citizens. Columbus is a great place to live because of good citizens. Columbus excels because of good citizens. Columbus is a city of great wealth because of good citizens. I write in celebration and gratitude to those in Columbus who share that wealth. In the summer of 2019, Robin Cain and I started a specialty “Design Camp” at Columbus Youth Camp. It has run each summer since. This summer, Exhibit Columbus raised the ante with their marvelous upgrade. The J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program complemented Exhibit Columbus with the first bilingual specialty Art Camp by architecture student Martha Olivia Velderrain Chavez (Marthita) with Robin Cain. In the 2021 Exhibit Columbus, J. Irwin Miller Architecture students teamed with Columbus Youth Development ambassadors for Next Generation Day to serve as docents for the exhibits. I hope they are able to team again for Next Generation Day 2023.
Columbus and its organizations and citizens continue to rise and engage and embrace good design as essential to community, as exhibited by these events. As I set out to work in 2018 toward having the resources, talents, and creativity of Indiana University’s Eskenazi School J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program engage with Columbus, I was given some good advice: “You need not set your own table here, there is a feast of opportunity at tables all around town. Just show up, and take a seat!” And this proved to be true. We all got to work. The system was in the room and CivicLab’s question — “What can we do together that we could not do alone?”, spurred the search for solutions.
I was continually met with welcome from individuals, government, institutions and organizations in town. That, indeed made my decision to leave IU and go back to practice difficult — but easy in that I know all will be OK, as community outreach is at the heart of the J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program’s teaching. Columbus was, indeed, the best place to start a new architecture program because engagement to produce good design lies at the heart of its citizens.
Thank you all for making my job so easy, so much fun, and such a wonderful way to be part of and make a wonderful city my home and workplace! And thank you to IU and the faculty, staff and students of the J. Irwin Architecture program for bringing your all to me and to Columbus! Best wishes for all of you in the future!
