North Christian Church: Saarinen's Final Gift to Columbus
Indiana
In a small Indiana city that became one of the most unusual architectural laboratories in the world, the North Christian Church sits on a landscaped mound at the end of a quiet street, its hexagonal form so low and close to the earth that the slender spire rising from its center seems almost impossibly tall: one hundred and ninety-two feet of copper and concrete reaching toward the sky from a building that barely clears the tree line.
The church was designed by Eero Saarinen, the Finnish-American architect who also gave the world the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis, Dulles Airport outside Washington, and the TWA Terminal at New York's Kennedy Airport. North Christian was the last building Saarinen designed before his sudden death in nineteen sixty-one at the age of fifty-one. He never saw it built. His associate Kevin Roche completed the project, and the church was dedicated in nineteen sixty-four.
The commission came from J. Irwin Miller, the industrialist who ran the Cummins Engine Company from Columbus and who had spent decades persuading the city to hire great architects for its public buildings. Miller wanted a modern church. His own congregation was divided; some members preferred Gothic tradition. Miller ultimately convinced them that a contemporary building could express timeless spiritual values just as authentically as a cathedral, and he turned to Saarinen, a personal friend.
The result was a building that feels unlike any other house of worship in the country. The sanctuary is set into the earth mound, approached by long walks that slow the visitor's pace. Inside, a concrete ceiling with a central oculus admits a shaft of light into a space ringed by dark hardwood pews and black slate floors. The spire carries a golden cross visible from a considerable distance across the flat Indiana farmland.
The building is a National Historic Landmark, recognized as one of the most significant works of religious architecture produced in twentieth-century America.
