Mike Wolanin | The Republic Workers from Taylor Bros. install the white, vinyl fabric that will cover the dome of Exhibit Columbus installation InterOculus at the intersection of Fourth and Washington streets in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023.
It seemed fitting that a figurative and finishing scoop of ice cream was being added to one of Exhibit Columbus architectural exhibition’s centerpiece sweet spots Tuesday morning at Fourth and Washington streets downtown.
The top, oversized, vinyl-like covering of the installation “InterOculus” — a topper inspired by nearby Zaharakos’ rounded, ice cream sundaes — was being affixed as Richard McCoy sat watching a hardhat crew work when he could no longer restrain his oversized enthusiasm.
The scene unfolded slightly more than 72 hours before the Exhibit Columbus architectural exhibition “Public By Design” is set to open Friday with a 450-seat sold-out celebration at this spot at The Commons.
McCoy is executive director of the nonprofit Landmark Columbus Foundation that oversees the free, outdoor exhibition running through Nov. 26 with 13 total temporary installations from some of the world’s more innovative designers, all spinning their designs off local Modernists buildings or celebrated landscapes celebrating the city’s architectural legacy.
“What’s amazing is that for our opening weekend this Friday and Saturday we have them all programmed for activities except for the one at Mill Race Center because there’s a wedding there,” McCoy said of PORT’s “THE PLOT PROJECT” that uses all caps in its name for its wildflowers-and-grasses beautification.
The High School Design Team’s whimsical, not-yet-completed hangout-style creation “Machi” has two events planned Saturday. Overall, there are free activities planned at the installations from 9 a.m. to after dark Saturday.
“I don’t think I can recall a time in the past few years when there was something to do for free downtown from morning until evening,” McCoy said.
That includes the free Rock the Block street dance party at Fourth and Washington streets. A full, live band, Treasured, will rock out at “A Carousel For Columbus” along Fourth Street. Sax player Alex Farrar will perform at The Commons entrance.
Various ethnic and related dance troupes will perform under a lighted InterOculus.
“All of it Saturday is going to be phenomenal,” McCoy said. He offered a breezy, mini tour of the installations Tuesday morning, reeling off facts and figures and tidbits about the structures and landscapes of an exhibition he always has called a team effort. Yet, that effort also seems to place him in the role of something of a proud papa as the most visible face of Exhibit Columbus since it launched its first exhibition that attracted an estimated 40,000 people in 2017.
He pointed out that the ultimate focus of Exhibit Columbus is not literally the creations.
“People don’t really fall in love with buildings,” he said. “They love the experiences and the memories that they have around those buildings.”
That explains why he and the organizers and the participants are doing all they can to encourage the public to live up to the exhibition theme and design their own activities and fun around the installations.
McCoy sees everything from small concerts to poetry readings unfolding at “Carousel for Columbus,” featuring wooden benches and planters as decorative and eye-catching as anything else in unwinding nooks in the city.
He sees people enjoying meals together at “Sylvan Scrapple” unique glass-covered table, the one with bricks from both the nearby First Christian Church tower and the lost-to-a-fire Irwin Block Building. That installation from a University Design Research Fellows team from the University of Virginia is just off the Bartholomew County Library Plaza, which also features the installation “Design By Public’s brightly colored parasols for the shade that residents have long begged for on the summertime plaza.
A 52-page Exhibit Columbus guide included in this weekend’s Republic will include encouraging people to take in the installations via a mapped-out tour.
“People need to realize that this is not only to make an internationally recognized art exhibition,” McCoy said, “but it’s to get this community out walking around and exploring its own place.”
