The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
While in town, I attended a concert of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra did a program of Beethoven, Bartok and Schumann, conducted by Markus Stenz, with Zoltán Fejérvári as soloist. Neither of those performers are box office draws, and only the Beethoven Leonora Overture No. 3, is a known crowd pleaser. It was ambitious of the symphony’s management to put on such a program and selling it to any audience would be challenge. But it was a splendid concert, and it was disappointing that it drew so small a crowd – filling less than half of the seats. Fejérvári was entirely new to me, and while I didn’t at first recognize Stenz’ name, upon reading the program biography, I realized I had heard him excellently conduct Kurtág’s “Fin de Partie” last year in Paris.
The orchestra plays twenty classical programs a year in a restored movie palace on Monument Circle – so right in the center of the downtown. The auditorium is very much like the one I recently visited in Pittsburgh –with classical allusions in its decoration. The room is large, and the sound is neutral – making it a fine place to hear a full orchestra. The concert appeared to be something of a love fest between the conductor and the players, and it may have been a try-out for the orchestra’s open music director position for Stenz, Krzysztof Urbański having left the orchestra during COVID. Stenz is a pro. He conducted from memory, without a baton and doesn’t feel the need to beat time, but instead indicates cues, tempo and volume changes, phrasing and articulation with gesture. While the playing of the orchestra was a little, shall we say, enthusiastic during the Overture, the remainder of the concert was compelling – particularly in quieter passages. The violin section work in the second movement of the Bartok was especially beautiful.
Fejérvári is tall and gangly. He was in full command of the technical challenges of the concerto. He coaxed a sweet sound from the Steinway in Bartok’s 3rd concerto. Bartok is conventionally thought of as a percussive, “modernist” composer, but in this performance the lyricism shone through. The orchestra listened carefully to the musical lead of Fejérvári and followed suit. It was a moving, handsome performance. His lovely and unusual encore was the third movement of Jancek’s In The Mists. The performance of Schumann’s 2nd Symphony was straightforward and engaging. The orchestra’s playing, while perhaps not the most nuanced or precise, was fresh and fervent. There was a lot of smiling going on the part of both Stenz and the players (many of them young), and that sense of pleasure was contagious. The audience was equally enthusiastic, occasionally applauding, apparently spontaneously, between movements, and with a standing ovation at the concert’s conclusion (which seemed genuine, as opposed the now routine standing response at Carnegies Hall at every performance). It was an altogether satisfying musical evening, particularly impressive from a part-time band, in a city without a major music conservatory from which to draw (although Indiana University, about an hour away, does have one of the country’s leading music schools).
Columbus. Indiana
Columbus, Indiana is not to be confused with Columbus, Ohio. It is a town with a population of 50,000 about an hour south of Indianapolis. The town is famous among architecture buffs for its collection of structures designed by leading architects of the last hundred years. Wikipedia provides a good summary of what Columbus is all about:
“Columbus is a city known for its modern architecture and public art. J. Irwin Miller, 2nd CEO and a nephew of a co-founder of Cummins Inc., the Columbus-headquartered diesel engine manufacturer, instituted a program in which the Cummins Foundation paid the architects’ fees, provided the client selected a firm from a list compiled by the foundation. The plan was initiated with public schools and was so successful that the foundation decided to offer such design support to other non-profit and civic organizations. The high number of notable public buildings and public art in the Columbus area, designed by such individuals as Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli, and Richard Meier, led to Columbus earning the nickname “Athens on the Prairie.”
In a word, I was underwhelmed. A map sold at the visitors center lists 97 buildings and public art works located in this town of 50,000. The best work is mostly that which was commissioned by Cummins for its own use. The rest is generally not the most outstanding work of their designers. Often this appears to be the driven by limited funding resulting in inferior finishes and craftmanship. Some it seems like the starchitect didn’t take seriously a commission in the boonies. The projects are spread out around a large area – some a twenty-minute drive from the middle of town. All of the projects stand-alone – none are knitted into the small town’s fabric. They’re not urbanistic in any true sense of the word. The landscaping by the likes of Dan Kiley and Michael Van Val Valkenburgh was private, and mostly parking lots, or public, and not particularly well maintained.
The downtown reminded me a bit of Corning, New York, another company town with a philanthropic, design-oriented family in charge – but the main commercial street was not as well curated as in Corning. I had a tough time finding a place that was open for lunch on a Saturday afternoon. None of the work by renowned architects is on the main drag, Washington Street. The Miller family has been much celebrated for its patronage of high-end architecture (presumably using the money of Cummins shareholders to fund the Foundation). But the commissions seemed performative and attention seeking, despite all the blather in promotional materials about inspiring creativity and making Columbus a great place to live. The whole business felt like something of a stage set and not baked into the town’s planning and social fabric.
Actually, there seemed to be a lot of disinvested housing in the center of the town, and the adjacent areas were populated by tract house development and McMansions. Notably, just outside of downtown were the usual mid-western strip malls and regional malls featuring the standard national brands. As in Indianapolis, there just didn’t seem to me to be a deep commitment to making Columbus a vibrant place. As much as I love the work of William Rawn, a Bill Rawn boxy, conventional brick recreation center, is still a boxy, brick recreation center – even if his name is attached to. A Deborah Berke bank in a shopping mall – was just a drive-in bank branch. And I went hunting for the Hugh Hardy designed health center and found a grassy lot. Was it torn down? Was Hardy not famous enough to have his work preserved (his elementary school project for Columbus was far from the town’s center and I didn’t get there). A gigantic Robert Stern designed hospital complex was just plain odd – and was likely over-built for local needs – the extensive parking lots were empty on a Saturday afternoon. There was altogether too much banal Kevin Roche work done for Cummins facilities for my taste, the conventional modernism of which is not holding well up over time.
Was there anything I liked? The most impressive spaces I saw were actually interiors – in the stunning, elegant Sanctuary of Gunnar Birkerts St. Peter’s Lutheran Church and the light filled reading room of the Hope library branch, some distance from downtown Columbus. But interior designs do not directly impact public spaces. There is a Charles Gwathmey multifamily affordable senior project that struck me as quite elegant, and an effective use of a narrow site. The Dan Kiley Irwin Conference Center Landscape somewhat anachronistically makes use of the Bryant Park FERMOB tables and chairs – but how could I not like that? However, on the day I was there they were effectively props – no one was sitting in them, like in the Cummins commissioned public space in Indianapolis.
Indianapolis and Columbus place in high relief the difficulty in making great places – even with the most favorable local conditions. They both seem to have had progressive-minded civic leaders who wanted to ensure the future of their towns, and who commanded the resources to implement their plans. But plans and capital projects don’t make great places. To oversimplify, placemaking requires operating rather than capital funds (generally, much more difficult for government to come by). Activating public spaces is the result of the aggregation of many small interventions over a moderate period of time.
Indianapolis certainly has a lot of the right elements to create a vibrant downtown – by supporting a critical mass of street level activity – through outdoor eating and drinking, markets (the downtown City Market is just a rather forlorn food court needing substantial attention), pedestrianizing a few streets, presenting a consistent schedule of public events, foregrounding its historic structures (toning down signs for national retail) and encouraging modestly scaled mixed-use projects – all the usual moves.
There is a serious question as to why the city might want to do that. It is the state capitol, with all the activity that generates. It is a regional office center. It in an in-demand convention venue. Very few people live downtown. The creative class certainly has the option of living in a number of close in neighborhoods – if those are the people employers need to attract. Who would benefit from a walkable downtown with actual walkers? Living in such a place, is certainly my preference. There is something to be said philosophically for places with unique identities, that is that have soul. I’m of the view that in our polarized culture, drawing people together in attractive public places engages them in civic life and can provide an important unifying social force. Americans across the country need to be less atomized, drawn away from their screens and more engaged with each other. Quality public spaces (including elevating cultural events), with distinctive interesting programming (broadly defined) can provide that kind of collective experience.
But are there enough Hoosiers interested in that (or in attending the symphony) to make it a viable policy (or a sustainable orchestra)? A lot of people like, P.F. Chang’s – but that is not to be confused with the benefits of visiting a vibrant Chinese-American community.
