Miller House (Columbus, Indiana) - Architecture

Architecture

As a friend of J. Irwin and Xenia Miller, Eero Saarinen had first designed a summer house in the Muskoka region of Ontario, Canada for the family and was then asked to conceptualize and build the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana. The Miller house was meant to be a year-round residence, rather than just a vacation home. The Millers wanted a home in which they could entertain heads of states and titans of industry. At about 6,838 square feet, the Miller House is one of very few single family homes that Saarinen designed.

The Miller House epitomizes the modernist architectural tradition developed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with its open and flowing layout, flat roof, and stone and glass walls. Within the interior of the home, four non-public areas branch off from a central space, which features a conversation pit. These four branches include rooms for parents, children, guests and servants, and utilitarian areas (kitchen and laundry). The plan avoids a conventional axial organization, instead displacing the hierarchy of the rooms with a more egalitarian and functional arrangement. The geometry of the house's plan is similar to Andrea Palladio's 16th-century Villa Rotunda in its organization of rooms around a central space.

A grid pattern of skylights, supported by sixteen free-standing cruciform steel columns, show concern for the play of light and shadow. A cylindrical fireplace, a 50-foot long storage wall, and the sunken conversation pit are key elements of the modern design of the central space.

The completed house was photographed in 1958 by Ezra Stoller for an article that appeared in The Architecture Forum. The Millers made only minor changes to the house over the years, including the removal of an interior wall in order to enlarge a guest room.