Portfolio | Alexander Girard in Columbus

You know about Alexander Girard’s interiors for the Miller House, which I shared in this post. But did you also know he designed office interiors for two of J. Irwin Miller’s businesses, Irwin Management and Cummins Inc., as well as accessories for Eero Saarinen’s North Christian Church? He did, fitting his flamboyant modernist decoration inside a pair of Victorian storefronts on Columbus, Indiana’s main street. In the essay on Girard I will be writing for the Vitra Design Museum I will analyze these projects in more depth, but in the meantime I wanted to share a few of the striking details of these projects that remain intact. The offices were designed and constructed between 1960 and 1972, so you have to imagine these discussed in the context of corporate modern interiors at the Seagram Building, CBS and the Ford Foundation. Those of you who know Girard’s textile designs will recognize the checkerboard floor as closely related to his Checker upholstery fabric, reissued by Maharam, and the striped rug as part of the family of his tonal Mexicottons.

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