Irwin Conference Center

The Irwin Union Bank Building (also the Irwin Office Building and Conference Center) is located at 500 Washington Street in Columbus, a city in Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. It is set back from the northwest corner of the intersection of Fifth and Washington streets, which, at the time of the bank's construction, was the town's busiest. Adjoining the Irwin Union Bank Building are various commercial buildings, which rise two or three stories. It is also close to other structures such as The Republic Newspaper Office and Columbus City Hall. Landscape As built, the bank building only occupied one-third of the site. The rear or western portion houses a drive-through window and a large parking lot with trees. When the bank building was erected, the Irwin Union Bank did not own the entire site, and part of what is now the parking lot was occupied by another structure. Dan Kiley was the bank building's landscape architect, selecting specific types of trees and foliage to provide shade and integrate the building into the streetscape. He used littleleaf linden trees as the basis of the space, with euonymus as ground cover and seasonal spring bulbs, begonias, geraniums, and chrysanthemums as accents. Kiley also added an underground sprinkler system to irrigate the plants. The main bank building is set back from the sidewalk. The trees are placed near the sidewalk to help integrate the building into the streetscape, since the adjacent buildings are not recessed from the sidewalk. There is also a lawn west of the original bank, surrounded by honey locusts. located west of the main building, it had a driveway and parking lot for customers who did not want to go inside. A driveway, dating from 1966, travels between the trees, splitting up into multiple lanes divided by brick and concrete median strips. ==Architecture==

The Irwin Office Building and Conference Center was designed in two phases. The office wing conceals the irregular northern boundary of the lot, Although the railroad had stopped running by World War II, Saarinen's building occupies part of the line's right-of-way, The Irwin Union Bank Building is one of seven buildings in Columbus designated as National Historic Landmarks. The others are The Republic Newspaper Office, the Mabel McDowell Adult Education Center, the Miller House, the North Christian Church, the First Christian Church, and the First Baptist Church. Of these buildings, the Irwin Conference Center is one of three designed by Saarinen, the others being the Miller House and North Christian Church, all three of which were commissioned by the local businessman J. Irwin Miller. The bank building is also one of several modernist public buildings that Miller commissioned in the town, and, along with a 1952 cottage in Canada, one of four buildings that Saarinen designed for Miller. The annex is also one of numerous Roche-Dinkeloo designs in Columbus, along with the city's post office, the city's visitor center, and Cummins Inc. facilities such as the Cummins Corporate Office Building. Exterior Main building The main bank building is one story high and has a square floor plan measuring across. On each elevation, the lowest of the facade consists of Indiana limestone, while above it are windows that extend to the roof. Each bay has a horizontal steel mullion bar, dividing it into two panes; the lower pane measures high, while the upper pane spans most of the bay's height. The glass-walled design was intended to contrast both with traditional banks' facades The western elevation has drive-through tellers' windows; The building has a concrete roof covered in standing seam metal. The roof's thick concrete slab is above ground level. Office wing and annex The original office wing is set back behind another building on Washington Street. Roche's annex is connected to the original wing via an arcade, The annex is three stories high and uses similar materials to the original office wing. Interior The one-story main bank building has a banking hall for public functions, A basement extends underneath both the banking hall and the original office wing. The building also had telephone dictation machines, a first in Indiana. An elevator and spiral stair led between the tellers' counters and the basement. The floors are made of buff-brick pavers in a basket-weave pattern, The windows have full-height bamboo drapes. and are clad with acoustic material, in contrast to the rest of the ceiling, which is covered in plaster. The banking hall was originally decorated in shades of blue-gray, yellow, and brown, interspersed with cane and walnut paneling. There were also red planters. All of the desks and chairs had an identical design.As built, a display area was placed at the southeast corner of the banking hall, adjoining the main entrance. ==History==

The building was commissioned for the Irwin Union Trust Company, formed in 1928 when Irwin's Bank acquired the Union Trust Company. Irwin's Bank, in turn, had been founded in 1871 as a safe deposit box at Joseph I. Irwin's dry-goods store. By the early 1950s, Irwin Union Trust's existing building was overcrowded; deposits at the Irwin Union Trust had grown 900 percent over the past two decades, and a proposal to expand the building had been deemed infeasible. Development Miller contacted the modernist architect Eero Saarinen about the possibility of designing a new building for the bank in 1949, hiring him the next year. Eero Saarinen was Miller's favorite architect, and Saarinen likewise regarded Miller as "the perfect client", ultimately designing four buildings for him. In exchange, the Griffith Building's owners, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Marr, obtained Irwin Union Trust's existing structure and continued to lease it to the bank. Irwin Union Trust then announced that it would demolish the mill while leaving the Griffith Building intact. Work on the mill's demolition commenced that March, with scrap metal from the mill being sold. Miller went to Saarinen's office in Michigan to discuss plans for the new bank. His design did not use the architectural elements of older banks, such as masonry facades or tellers' windows with iron bars. The glass facade symbolized the bank's progressive mission, The building itself would be one of the United States' first banks to use glass walls and an open-plan layout. Eight firms submitted bids for the general contract to construct the building, and construction contracts were awarded to four Indiana–based firms that July. J. L. Simmons Company was hired as the general contractor, the Taylor Lumber and Supply Company as the mechanical engineer, the Long Electric Company as the electrical engineer, and the Service Elevator Company as the elevator contractor. Although construction began in 1953, most work did not start until the following year. In April 1954, cement contractors went on strike while pouring the roof; at the time, much of the concrete work had been completed. The vault door from the old bank was relocated to the new building that July. Workers tried for several weeks to demolish the old building's vault, but this was extremely difficult because the vault was encased in of concrete. The trees around the new building were being planted by December 1954, when bank officials announced that the bank would be renamed to the Irwin Union Bank and Trust Company. The simple design reduced the building's total cost to either $690,000 Use as bank Completion and early years The bank moved all its departments between the old and new downtown branches on March 9, 1955, and the new building opened the next day, March 10. In contrast to the old branch, where different departments had maintained different operating hours, the new branch maintained one set of operating hours for all departments. the open house attracted 5,000 visitors, including 2,555 just on March 25. The new building also hosted a tour for 800 bankers that April. The building also won an award from the American Association of Nurserymen's (AAN) 1955 Plant America competition for its landscape design. Miller retained a small office in the old bank building at 301 Washington Street, working there for most of the rest of his life. Observers made fun of the new bank building's roof, which they likened to a "brassiere factory". Even so, the design of the new building helped increase the Irwin Union Bank's patronage, During the 1960s, visitors frequented the building for its architecture as well. Due to the growth of the bank's business, the computer and operations departments were relocated to another building on 6th Street in 1965. The bank's staff had grown from 78 to 230 during that time. and Taylor Brothers Construction was hired as the general contractor. Before work began, the customer parking lot was relocated to the northwest corner of the site, Despite a construction accident in June 1971, when some of the annex's beams collapsed during a heavy wind, work proceeded with few delays. The annex's construction was one of several projects that were constructed as part of a revitalization of downtown Columbus. The annex originally contained the Irwin Union Bank's data-processing department in the basement, the bank's travel bureau on the first floor, a trust department on the second floor, and an accounting bureau on the third floor. Mid-1970s to 2000s In 1976, to celebrate the United States Bicentennial, a time capsule was displayed at the bank's downtown branch and then buried under a nearby sidewalk. The bank's travel bureau, which had offices in the downtown branch, was sold in 1980 to IVI Travel, which continued to occupy the building. The next year, the Inland Mortgage Corporation opened an office in the banking hall, occupying space vacated by the home loan department. Prudential Bache Securities also opened an office at Irwin Union's downtown branch in 1984. To improve the branch's efficiency, in 1989, the Irwin Union Bank relocated several of the downtown branch's departments from the office wings to the main banking hall. In addition, the insurance services department, which had been located at another branch, was relocated to the downtown office. The bank also sought to consolidate the offices of its subsidiary Irwin Union Capital Corporation, which were split between the Irwin Union Bank's downtown branch and a building across the street, so it simultaneously renovated the adjacent Sparrell Block Building at 520 Washington Street. The Irwin Union Bank became the Irwin Financial Corporation in 1990, The branch's original design remained largely unchanged in the early 21st century; Architecture: The AIA Journal wrote in 2002 that an ATM and computers were the only visible alterations to the banking hall. Though Irwin Financial's headquarters remained in Columbus, it had expanded outside of Indiana, opening multiple branches across the U.S. Due to a shortage of space at its downtown offices, Irwin Financial announced plans in 2000 to expand into an adjacent lot at 526 Washington Street, and it acquired another building at 435 Washington Street in 2003. Saarinen and Roche-Dinkeloo's structure at 500 Washington Street hosted a commercial bank branch and administrative and operational offices, while other departments were scattered across 520, 526, and 435 Washington Street. First Financial, which had been considering constructing an office complex in Columbus, canceled these plans after the merger, instead planning to use 500 Washington Street. Instead, First Financial decided to construct another building several blocks away, at Third and Brown streets. First Financial sold the Irwin Union Bank Building in October 2010 to Cummins Inc. for $5.25 million. Use as conference center Cummins announced plans to renovate it into office and meeting space for 350 workers. First Financial would continue to occupy the building until its new facility was completed in 2012, after which Cummins renovated the building. By the end of 2012, Cummins was renovating the structure into the Irwin Office Building, which accommodated 525 employees. Cummins planned to convert the banking hall into an atrium, furnishing the building with mid-century furniture, while the rest of the building became open-plan offices. Following the restoration, Docomomo International gave the building's renovation a Citation of Merit in 2015. As part of the inaugural edition of the Exhibit Columbus art program, in 2017, Oyler Wu Collaborative repurposed three of the Irwin Conference Center's drive-through teller windows for a site-specific art installation called The Exchange. The artists won the J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize for this installation, which remained at the building for several years. The original banking structure was used as a conference center and work space until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indiana during early 2020. The building was completely vacant by October 2022, and a sign within the building announced that the conference center was closed. In February 2024, Cummins announced that it would sell the Irwin Conference Center and its office annex, as well as the adjacent Cummins Sears office building. By that September, Toyota Material Handling was negotiating to buy the Irwin Conference Center complex. == Impact ==

Reception When the bank was constructed, the Courier Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, wrote that "about the only thing in the new Irwin Union Trust Company building that looks like a bank is the vault door". When the annex was built, a writer for the Cincinnati Post said that Roche's involvement in the annex's design "is both logical and appropriate since he continues [the Saarinen family's] concept of modern elegant design." In 1976, New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger wrote that the Irwin Union Trust Bank was a "gracious" structure, calling it one of several unique buildings in Columbus that stood "among the well-crafted Victorian storefront buildings that could be anywhere". That year, Paul Gapp of the Chicago Tribune called the bank Columbus's "greatest architectural success", enhanced in part by Kiley's landscaping. The Green Bay Press-Gazette wrote in 1989 that the building "has aged with immense grace" despite its simple design. while Douglas Wissing of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the open plan had obviated the need for bulky tellers' windows. The preservationist Jeff Baker regarded the ceiling domes as impractical, since they carried sound across the room, but said that this unusual design feature was precisely why the building merited historical protection. When Miller died in 2004, The Washington Post wrote that the building he had commissioned for the Irwin Union Bank was "wonderfully transparent". Architecture writers Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht wrote in 2006 that the design "has a timeless quality thanks to the skillful blend of Miesian formality and warm Cranbrook touches". The building's roof was emulated in a branch at State and Mapleton streets, completed in 1961 and designed by Harry Weese. The Baltimore Sun wrote in 1975 that all of Irwin Union Bank's branches in Bartholomew County were "innovative and elegant", having been inspired by the quality of the downtown branch's design. The Irwin Union Bank Building also inspired the design of other bank buildings in the U.S. in general. He initially offered to pay for the city's schools before offering to finance other public buildings as well, and for several years, an average of two modernist structures were developed in Columbus annually. The Architectural Review of Britain described Saarinen's buildings for Miller as an "important legacy from Saarinen for the environment". The high concentration of modern buildings in Columbus, including the Irwin Union Bank Building, helped make it one of the American Institute of Architects' top U.S. cities for innovation and design. The building's design was also depicted in Columbus, a 2017 film set in the city. In early 2000, the Irwin Union Bank Building and five other modernist structures in Columbus were nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as National Historic Landmarks (NHLs). The United States Department of the Interior designated four of these buildings, including the Irwin Union Bank Building, as landmarks that May. This was the first time in U.S. history that several buildings were simultaneously designated as NHLs before turning 50 years old, the minimum cutoff required of most buildings on the NRHP. The Irwin Union Bank Building was designated as one of the first bank buildings in the U.S. with an open plan and glass facade; the designation allowed the building to qualify for federal preservation funds. The landmark nominations themselves received national media attention, in part because very few NRHP sites were designated as NHLs, let alone multiple in such a small area. ==See also==